Secret Santa
by Jolly Green
Summary: What would you do if the person you were the Secret Santa for just so happened to be the bane of your existence? Would you blow them off? Or perhaps follow through with it despite everything? Or maybe... something else? Rated M for safety due to language. Naru/Hina with a side of Sasu/Saku -Now with crossover cameos from RWBY!-
1. Chapter 1

Secret Santa

By: Jolly

A Naruto Fanfic

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Author's note

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Hello again everyone! It has been a long while since I last wrote something, but I got the writing bug bad. I've got another nifty story that's just chock full of NaruHina win! Or at least it will once it eventually gets there. :3 I even threw in a side of SasuSaku for free! This one is slightly based on personal experience and certainly a present-day AU. I was gunning for a one-shot, but when I hit 13K words and still had a good chunk left to write, I decided to split this into two chapters. This is entirely un-beta'd, so any mistakes are completely mine and I apologize in advance for any I missed.

Enjoy!

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"Damn it," grumbled a slightly disheveled blond teenager as he glared hatefully at the screen in front of him. "Not another one…" Pausing the game on his screen, Naruto Uzumaki leaned back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. Letting out a breathe, he pressed another button on the controller to bring up the debug information. Blue eyes scanned the on-screen data briefly as he put the controller on his desk and picked up a well-used notepad to begin jotting down a note.

"Map… Gun-Runner… Fault… Hole in map… Location… Wall intersection," he glanced back up at the screen momentarily. "36-23, 37-1… Details… Frag grenade explosion causes fault in map floor allowing player character to fall out of level at wall intersection." He then tossed the pencil and pad back onto his desk, picked the controller back up and restarted the level that he had been testing for the last nine hours. "All right you annoying P.O.S… let's have one last go at you to see what else I can break before I send you back to the S.E. boys and girls."

If anyone had asked Naruto a year ago if he would like a job playing video games all day, the likely answer would have been somewhere between 'damn skippy!' and 'where do I sign?' Now, however? Now, Naruto would probably stare a burning hole through the person asking him the question.

Being a member of the Quality Assurance team was not a difficult job, per se. It was merely tedious. Tedious, as in, 'Oh-My-God-Save-Me-I've-Been-Playing-The-Same-Level-Over-And-Over-For-The-Last-Nine-Hours', Tedious. And the writing involved? Don't even get him started. Naruto hadn't known how many notes he would have to write down when he first took the job, but if he had known, he might very well have declined the position merely on principle.

"Wait, what the hell?" he exclaimed as he cocked his head at the screen. He tapped the left analog stick on the controller to move his character backwards a bit, causing a tree he had walked past to sheer across the screen. "How did I miss that the last fifty times I've passed this?" Grumbling even more explicatives at the digital flora, Naruto repeated the process of annotating the error before he continued to play through the level.

He ended up finding three more unique errors during his playthrough before he finally turned off the developer console on his desk and pressed a button below the screen to switch the input to his computer's desktop. As he let out a long sigh, Naruto picked up his notepad from his desk and paged through his notes to get a quick count. He then opened up a word processor to begin the process of transcribing his notes into a legible report.

Many positive things could be said about Naruto Uzumaki. Unfortunately, his handwriting was not one of those things. As text began steadily filling the screen, Naruto idly reached down into a drawer and pulled out an energy bar, stopping his typing only long enough to open the wrapper. He was nearly a quarter of the way finished with the report when a completely unwelcome voice behind him tore his attention from the screen.

"You are _supposed_ to still being testing the current map for errors, Mister Uzumaki. Why are you, instead, writing your daily report?" asked the cold, feminine voice. Naruto turned in his chair towards the antagonistic person in his cubicle while he attempted to keep his annoyance with said individual off of his face.

'Attempted' being the key word there.

Naruto merely held up his notepad and waved it a bit as he addressed his nominal superior with only a hint of the scorn he felt in his voice. "I've got over a hundred and twenty errors that I'm supposed to write into my daily report before the end of my shift, Miss Hyuuga. That simply isn't going to happen in the thirty minutes that you've allotted in the schedule," he explained while keeping direct eye contact with her. Her icy pale eyes only left his when she snatched his notebook from his grasp and began to flip through it quickly.

Apparently being unable to find a fault in his work ethic or his logical conclusions that led to his decision to 'not follow his schedule' was worthy of a scowl towards the blond as she closed and tossed his notebook at his chest. "How you can even read your own chicken scratch is beyond me. Have your report printed out and in my inbox before the end of your shift," she tersely told him as she stepped away from Naruto and made her way back to her office.

Once she was well out of earshot, Naruto finally let his annoyance with his personal nemesis show on his face as he turned back to his keyboard and muttered, "Bitch."

Hinata Hyuuga had seemed like such a nice supervisor when he first started working for the company. She had been very friendly to the entire team, Naruto included, for the first several months, but at some point, something changed with regards to him. Ever since then, she had treated him like dirt. As only good enough to be scraped from the bottom of her shoe.

What was worse was that Naruto simply couldn't understand why the change had happened in the first place. One day they were exchanging fairly regular e-mail traffic about numerous things, then the next it just stopped. At the time, he had merely shrugged it off, thinking she had more important things to do than chit-chat with him. But after several weeks, he began to wonder if he had said something unintentionally insulting to her without realizing. Then she suddenly started giving him the cold shoulder and it only went downhill from there.

Sure, he knew that he was a bit of a clown with his co-workers during breaks, but the worst that he'd ever done was hide the sugar and brought in an identical canister with salt inside. He'd even made sure to fess up immediately and put the original sugar back after he'd gotten his target, Kiba. Everyone had gotten a good laugh out of it and the fake sugar canister was still in the break room with a piece of duct tape on the side labelled 'SALT'.

But it shouldn't have gotten _that_ sort of response from Hinata Hyuuga, especially since she had started treating him worse _before_ the break room prank. Honestly, Naruto had stopped trying to figure it out after the first month. Now, he was the only one she addressed so formally in their work area and she seemed to go out of her way to find things wrong with his work on a weekly basis.

Had he not made a promise with his old man, he would have already quit this job. Unfortunately for Naruto, he _never_ went back on his word. Dattebayo! If he promised his father that he would have his name in the credits of a video game before he turned twenty, he would darn well _have_ his name in the credits of a video game before he turned twenty!

Stupid damned mouth… and stupid damned pale-eyed, cold-assed, stuck-up, micro-managing bitches.

With one final, violent, stab on his keyboard to finalize his report, Naruto saved the document to both his local computer and his personal network storage. He then e-mailed the report to the Software Engineering department and sent the document to the printer at the end of the row. He glanced at the time on his screen briefly and nodded. Five minutes to spare. He stood up and walked down the aisle towards the printer, which was already spitting out page after page of his report.

He reached the printer just as it finished the job and quickly straightened out the pages, stapled them together and headed over towards the large room's entrance. There by the main door, on the wall, was a wooden organizer with small cubbies secured to the wall. By each opening was the name of an employee and Naruto quickly slid his report into one of the largest three which was, unsurprisingly, labelled 'Hyuuga.'

He quickly headed back to his desk to clock out for the day, but decided to check his e-mail one last time before heading home. He quirked an eyebrow at an e-mail that had come in just a few minutes ago with the Subject: Secret Santa.

Was it really already December? Where the heck did Fall go?

Naruto mentally shrugged and opened the e-mail to see what the deal was. Apparently the Human Resources department figured everyone could use a morale booster as they came up on the final stretch for the development of the game. The body of the e-mail had all of the guidelines for the event and attached was a questionnaire to fill out for anyone who wanted to participate.

Naruto scanned the guidelines briefly. Fifty dollar limit. Keep gifts Safe For Work. If you participate, you must bring a gift or forfeit your own gift. Blah, blah, yadda, yadda. He didn't see any deal breakers on the list, so what the heck? Naruto absentmindedly clocked out for the day before he opened the attachment and began filling it out. Taking the time to double-check himself, Naruto gave a small nod, saved the document and sent the completed form back to the sender.

That done, he powered off his computer, grabbed his jacket and keys, and headed for the door. As he passed his supervisor's office, he glanced inside for a second. She was sitting at her desk, facing the doorway, reading through a report. Naruto could feel her gaze follow him, even though her eyes never left the papers in her hands. The feeling didn't leave even after there was a wall between them. It wasn't the first time Naruto had felt a similar sensation in regards to his supervisor, either. Weird…

He opened the door leading into the main areas of the building, looked over his shoulder at the mail boxes and, yep, his report was missing from her box.

Bitch.

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"You've _got_ to be kidding me…"

Naruto could only stare in disbelief at the e-mail on his monitor. However, no matter how long he stared at it, the e-mail would simply not magically change on his whim. The e-mail in question had once again hit his inbox at the end of his shift. The subject?

Secret Santa.

Out of the forty-some-odd members of the Quality Assurance team that he _could_ have gotten to be the Secret Santa for, his luck just _had_ to screw with him again and drop his personal nemesis' name right in his lap.

Hinata Hyuuga.

His mouse cursor hovered dangerously over the Delete button as he attempted to melt the monitor with his glare. Instead of following through with what he _really_ wanted to do, Naruto leaned back in chair, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He may have been, without a doubt, a major hothead, but his parents didn't raise a vindictive asshole or a fool. He opened his eyes, infinitely more calmed than ten seconds previous, leaned back towards his keyboard and mouse, and forwarded the e-mail to his personal address. He would read through her questionnaire later once he'd solicited advice from the best source at his disposal.

As soon as Naruto had stepped through the exterior doors to the employee parking lot, he hit speed dial '2' on his phone and put it against his ear.

" _Riiiiing… Riiiiing… Rii…_ " _*click*_

" _Hey, kid! What's the special occasion?_ " spoke the cheerful female voice on the other end of the line.

Naruto couldn't help but grin. "Hi, mom," he began. "Sorry it's been so long since I last called, but work's been crazy the last couple of months. We're just about ready to wrap up production on our current project," Naruto explained, apology plain in his voice as he made his way to his car. "So, that means that it's crunch time for the entire production team."

'Crunch time,' he had learned, meant that the team would be so busy, Naruto expected to be sleeping at his desk for the next couple of weeks _and_ work through the weekends in order to finish doing all of the necessary testing in time to meet the deadline. Which reminded him… he had better pick up supplies for his desk this weekend.

" _Don't sweat it, Naruto,_ " reassured his mother, her unseen smile evident. " _Your father and I are just glad that you're working hard to fulfill your promise. Though, to be honest, I'm still wondering if you're going to be able to make time to come home for Christmas?_ " Kushina asked with a mix of hope and doubt.

As his car came into view, Naruto hit the remote unlock and start on his key and grimaced as he dodged between the side mirrors of two cars parked just a _bit_ too close together. "Barring some emergency, I should be able to make Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas morning, no worries," Naruto told her seriously. This was his first year living on his own, but Naruto still had every intention of making the hour long drive to his parents' house for the important holidays whenever he could manage it.

A sigh of relief came over the line that caused him to chuckle as he opened the door to his 2016 Chevrolet Cruze and sat down. " _That's great to hear! I can't wa-_ " the sound in the earpiece cut off as the car's Bluetooth took over the call. " _\- to have you home again,"_ came over the speakers. Naruto placed his phone in its dashboard stand, buckled up and pulled out of the spot to make his way out of the lot. " _Any chance of you having a plus one for Christmas Eve dinner?_ " his mother asked hopefully.

Kushina Namikaze-Uzumaki's desire for eventual grandchildren, and her harassment of her only son about his love life, was a running joke within the extended family. She was ever hopeful that Naruto would one day bring a girlfriend over to 'meet the parents' and no amount of time lapsed nor number of 'no's' from her son could deter that hope.

Naruto merely shook his head in exasperation. "Mom, I barely have the presence of mind to keep my plant watered most weeks, let alone juggling work, bills, household chores _and_ a girlfriend," he joked, hoping to move past this subject quickly. Then, in a move to put it to rest semi-permanently, he said, "I promise you, mom. You'll be the second person to know if and when I convince some insane woman to be my girlfriend."

" _Who would be the first, then?_ " came the quick response.

"Me!" Naruto exclaimed with a laugh as he hit the on-ramp to the highway. A moan of despair came over the speakers in response.

" _Well, I suppose that rules out girl troubles as the reason why you called today…_ "

Naruto could actually _feel_ the blush on his cheeks. "Actually…" He was then forced to turn down the volume on the dashboard in response to the assault of sound his mother might have called a 'squee.' "Damn, mom! Knock it off before I have dogs chasing my car down the highway!" Naruto only turned the volume back up after he was sure his mother had gotten control of her excitement.

" _Tell me everything! Spare no detail. What's her name? What does she look like? Does she-_ "

"It's not like that, mom! Jeez… just," he pause, sighed, then continued. "Just let me explain, okay?"

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" _I see… that really is a pickle_ ," his mother said, her voice once more coming over the ear piece as he sprawled on his couch. " _So you called because you want to know what I think you should do, right?_ "

Naruto nodded his head as he rubbed his free hand down his face. "Yeah, that's about the long and short of it," he agreed. "I'm just torn, you know? I mean, I was _this_ close to just saying 'Fuck it' and deleting the e-mail, but…"

" _But you knew I would have kicked your ass for being a vindictive asshole_ ," she finished for him, matter-of-factly in a satisfied tone. " _Knew I raised you right._ " Naruto couldn't help but chuckle at his mother. He could practically see her nodding her head in pride with herself in his mind. " _Well! If that's the case, then I only see one way to handle it, kid!_ "

At this, Naruto sat himself up and quirked an eyebrow. "Oh yeah? What's that?"

" _It's simple, really. Kill her with kindness!_ "

"Kill her with kindness…?" he repeated, confused.

" _Yup~!_ " The 'P' was a loud pop. It was one of his mother's verbal tics that she used when she was patting herself on the back for a great idea. Coincidentally, it was also one that he seemed to have inherited… The only downside was that when she had one of her 'great' ideas, she more often than not failed, or refused, to elaborate. Instead she expected everyone else to follow her own train of logic to reach the same conclusion. It was one of Naruto's _least_ favorite games, but he knew that she would stay silent on the line until he either agreed with her or questioned her about it.

Naruto knew to question his mother's ideas at his own peril. So, he was forced to attempt to follow her logic instead. In order to 'kill her with kindness,' he would have to logically do the 'kind' thing. That would mean actually going through with the Secret Santa event. Okay, so she wanted him to do it. Got that… but 'kill her with kindness'? She was his personal workplace nemesis. How would he…?

Naruto's eyes shot open as the figurative lightbulb went on in his head.

He thought back on the original e-mail and mentally went over the rules and guidelines. Nowhere in the rules did it state that he was limited to giving only one gift, nor did it say anything about when said hypothetical additional gifts could be given to the recipient. And seeing as how the whole thing was _meant_ to be secretive, that meant he would have to pull it all off while not changing his behavior. All the while, _she_ would still be treating him like dirt and…

It started as a soft chuckle and worked its way up to a full-blown belly laugh. His mom was the _best_! This was it! If he pulled this off, this would be his crowning glory. His greatest prank ever! But wait…

"Mom," he started, a wide grin plastered on his face. "This is your greatest idea to date," he said with conviction. "But I'm going to need your help to pull it off. I'll see you in about an hour."

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Hinata was still trying to shake the cold out of her bones as she swiped her badge in front of the reader by the door into the Quality Assurance team's area. A major cold front had blown in over the weekend and the forecast showed that it was likely going to be a very white holiday season this year. She didn't know whether to be upset or relieved that most of her team already planned to be practically living at the office during the next two weeks.

She personally felt that the holidays should be spent with your loved ones, not at work. However, because the development of their current project had been delayed, the entire development team was now forced to work right through the weeks leading up to Christmas. She already knew that she would have to approve days off for a few of her workers whose religious holidays were observed during the next couple of weeks, but that left the rest of the team going strong right up until the last minute.

Hinata just hoped that her team would be able to handle the workload on top of any holiday plans they might have had.

She was so distracted with these thoughts that she didn't notice the large silvery bag sitting on her chair until she was a full two steps into her office. Her eyes immediately narrowed with suspicion and she quickly glanced about her office looking for any other signs that might clue her into the identity of the intruder. Finding nothing with her eyes, she took a deep breath through her nose to catch any scents that might give them away.

Instead, her eyes widened at the very distinct scent of cinnamon. Cinnamon, aside from being one of her favorite spices, also happened to be excellent for covering up any lingering scents that might have been left. Whether that was by accident or design…

Hinata made her way around her desk to her chair and stared at the bag, willing it to spill the secret of who had left it there. The inanimate bag, however, merely sat there; completely immune to her intimidation tactics. Giving it up as a bad deal, Hinata finally relented and carefully pulled the bag open. Inside the _insulated_ bag lay a bakery box. A box from a bakery halfway across town. Curiouser and curiouser…

Atop the box was a small nondescript card, which Hinata gently plucked out of the bag and opened.

 _Do your best!_

 _Secret Santa_

She didn't recognize the handwriting at all. Very odd, indeed. Hinata had seen the raw notes of every person on the Quality Assurance team aside from the handful that didn't make hand-written notes at all. While her Secret Santa _could_ have been one of those people, her gut told her it wasn't. No, no… her gut told her that her Secret Santa was someone on her team. She could think of a few of her team members that _might_ think of doing something like this.

Which one _was_ it, though…? Temari? Perhaps… but the note was too simple for her normal writing pattern. Sasuke? No, no. 'Do your best' was not something he would say at all. This fit Sakura's style more than anyone else on her team. Though judging by the smell alone, Hinata knew if it _was_ Sakura, she wouldn't be able to restrain herself from 'wandering by' at just the right time to weasel her way into snagging one for herself. That girl had a major sweet tooth. And it certainly wasn't Naruto, Kiba, Lee or Sai. Subtlety was _not_ their strong suit.

Though there was that one prank in the break room… Hinata had to admit that one was pretty smooth on Naruto's part… not to mention funny.

Hinata allowed a small smile to play across her lips as she put the card on her desk and reached into the bag to pull out the box. She could guess, but she truly was surprised that her Secret Santa would go to such lengths as to bring an early gift of her favorite guilty pleasure. Lo' and behold… a half dozen cinnamon buns were revealed as she opened the lid. Her mouth watered eagerly at the thought of biting into one of those tantalizing, delectable treats.

"Miss Hyuuga. We've got a problem." A _very_ unwelcome voice broke her from her reverie. She was so distracted by her gift that she had completely missed Naruto's approach to her office. She bit back an involuntary growl at the interruption, but some of her anger must have shown through, because Naruto's neutral expression turned slightly sour. Hinata knew that she shouldn't take it out on him. Naruto _never_ interrupted her morning routine unless something was seriously wrong. It was one of the things that she liked most about him as one of her team members; if it was something that could be handled without her input, he took care of it and only let her know after the fact to keep her in the loop. If only he hadn't…

Calming herself a bit, Hinata focused on Naruto and responded. "What seems to be the issue, Mister Uzumaki?" He seemed to recover his previous neutral demeanor as he straightened up from where he was leaning forward onto the doorframe and stepped into the office a bit.

"Nobody in Q.A. can access the updated maps that the S.E team uploaded over the weekend," he explained quickly. "I called over to S.E. and they said they didn't have any issues with the upload, so I checked the folder permissions and got immediately kicked back. It seems that the folder permissions got messed up sometime between then and now and, unfortunately, the only two guys in I.T. that can fix the problem aren't going to be in for at least another half hour."

Hinata's eyes narrowed dangerously. The beginning of crunch time was not _at all_ the time for something like this to happen without a quick fix in the pipeline. "I.T. is supposed to show up at 7 A.M., just like us. Why are they late?"

Naruto sighed shortly and then told her exactly what she didn't want to hear right now. "Seems one of them broke down on the way to work and the other went to go pick him up. He left his desk not two minutes before I called the Help Desk." He then shrugged and shook his head. "Just bad timing all around, ma'am. I came to tell you the situation… and to ask if you wanted me to pass the word to the team to go over their old reports to look for trends?

Hinata's eyes closed and her shoulders drooped slightly. ' _Damn it… why does he have to be so damned efficient?_ ' It was times like this that made her both glad he was on her team and upset with him for blowing her off all these months. He would have been the _perfect_ replacement for Tenten's Team Lead position instead of that complete incompetent, Mizuki. Why did he not…?

' _No. Stop it, Hinata. What's done is done._ ' After centering herself, Hinata finally opened her eyes to see Naruto's sky blue eyes staring at her quizzically. "Thank you for letting me know, Mister Uzumaki. Yes, please have the team go over their notes and reports to look for trends they can use to test the new maps more efficiently."

Naruto gave a quick nod and stepped back to turn around, but stopped momentarily. After a second, he turned his head back towards Hinata and stage whispered, "Also, unless you want the team to come track those things down in the next 5 minutes, you might want to close the door or secure them somewhere safe." He jutted his chin in the direction of the bakery box on her desk to indicate what 'those things' were, before turning his head back around and disappearing beyond the portal.

With a long sigh, Hinata decided to take the blonde's advice. She quickly moved to her office door, peeked out momentarily to check for anyone nearby, and closed it so that she could enjoy her second breakfast in relative peace. ' _With the delay, I should have just enough time to have_ one _of them_ ,' she thought to herself happily as she made her way back to her chair.

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'WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?! WHO! WHO! WHO-WHO! WHO LE-' *clatter-clatter* '-THE DOGS OUT?!'

"Shit! Stupid phone… What do you want, Dog Breath? I just dropped my phone because you called when I was getting out of my car! Damn it, hold on a sec…" *shh-shh-shh* *fooooooosh* "You're lucky it didn't break, dude. I would have been forced to kick your ass."

" _Ha! Never mind then, Butterfingers. You answered my question already. See you in a bit!_ " *click*

"…The hell was that all about? Ass… couldn't wait five minutes for me to get into the office."

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" _Mister_ Uzumaki! What is the meaning of _this_?" Hinata called out as she stormed down the row of cubicles towards the source of her ire holding a printout in her clenched hand. As she came upon his desk, Naruto had already swiveled around in his chair to face her with a quirked eyebrow. Hinata held up the paper in her hand as she stared him down. "Why am I getting complaints from the Software Engineers about you calling them idiots?!"

Naruto held up a finger to stop her from going on. "I did not call anyone an idiot. I merely strongly inferred that the designer and/or team responsible for the… travesty that is the 'boss room' that was sent to us needed to revisit their childhood days of playing 8-bit gaming systems to better understand the concept of acceptable 'room design' and what a 'reasonable' boss fight entails," he explained, annoyance painted across his face. He thrust his thumb over his shoulder at his monitor that was showing the current build on a pause screen. "Here, just watch a few playthroughs and you'll see what I'm talking about."

He then spun around in his chair, picked up the controller lying on his desk and unpaused the game. Hinata watched as the character entered the room with what was supposedly the final boss, the screen cut to a cinematic that Naruto quickly skipped, and then watched as the fight began… and then ended five seconds later. "Wait, you died in one hit? How does that work?" Hinata asked as she leaned over the back of Naruto's chair to stare at the monitor. Naruto restarted the level and brought up his character's inventory, allowing Hinata to scan over everything quickly. "You've equipped the best gear and still got one-shot? Go back into the room and let me see something," she commanded over his shoulder.

Naruto silently complied, re-entering the room as instructed, then skipped the cinematic again. "Do a 360 first thing." Naruto did so and then died as soon as he had completed a full rotation. However, Hinata had seen what had upset Naruto so much. "You can't avoid that first shot?" Naruto shook his head.

"I've played this level almost fifty times through and still haven't managed to _not_ get hit right off the bat," he explained as he finally turned back to Hinata, who was much closer than he had expected her to be. "There's no cover within a reachable distance before that first shot lands and the accuracy is damned near pinpoint with the ability to one-shot a max-geared player character."

Hinata, however, was not the least bit concerned about her proximity to him. Instead, it seemed as if she had taken the full head of steam directed at him and was about to point it elsewhere. The sound of multiple pairs of feet shuffling behind her forced Hinata to temper her anger as she turned to find that they had an audience. Her fellow team leaders Ino and Mizuki had followed her over from the offices to Naruto's desk and she could see her entire team either standing or poking their heads into the aisle.

She decided to address her team first. "Do the rest of you concur with Mister Uzumaki's findings?" She received a series of nods and numerous variations of yes as a response. Kiba's sarcastic quip of, 'I'll pay any S.E. scrub a hundred dollars that can win that fight without dev cheats as it is right now,' got a good round of chuckles from the group, too. Hinata turned her attention to her fellow leads.

"Check with your teams to see if it's the same with them. If they agree, then I'm going to march over there and give them a piece of all our minds. We do _not_ have the time to waste on builds this broken at this stage of development and I plan to make that abundantly clear. We should be dealing with complete levels with minimal errors, not…" she turned back to Naruto's monitor and waved a hand at it dismissively. "Not _that_."

They gave quick nods and jogged over to their respective teams as Hinata turned back to Naruto. "As for you, Mister Uzumaki," she began with a cold glare that Naruto seemed to completely ignore. "Next time, bring something like this to my attention _first_ instead of making the unilateral decision to send a scathing e-mail to another team. Dealing with interdepartmental stupidity in _my_ job, not yours." Without waiting for a response from him, she left his cubicle and made her way back down the aisle towards her office to prepare for the coming confrontation. ' _With any luck, it'll just be a case of being sent the wrong build_ ,' she thought to herself, keeping her figurative fingers crossed that that was _all_ that it was. A few hours of wasted work was a better outcome than having to overhaul an entire build because of a crappy design concept.

At some point, her entire team had disappeared into their cubicles and seemed to be busily doing everything they could to _not_ be in any way involved in the fireworks between Hinata and Naruto. As she reached the end of the row, she paused for a moment in an attempt to calm herself. She took a deep, shaky breath, and noticed that her hands seemed to be a bit jittery, causing her to frown out of concern. It was the fourth day into the crunch and Hinata's energy was beginning to wane. She had dealt with it before on other projects, but crunch time during development always seemed to leave her figurative fuel tank below quarter.

She momentarily wished that she still had one of those delicious cinnamon buns leftover from the beginning of the week, but between her own sugar needs and sharing with Ino, they had been devoured before the day was out. Hinata mentally steeled herself as she rounded the corner and made her way towards her office. She froze mid-step as something sticking out from the mailboxes caught her eye, causing her to turn for a closer look.

Jutting out from her mailbox was the distinctive wrapper of a Snickers bar. Curious, Hinata walked over and pulled it out. She was certain that it wasn't there ten minutes prior… but then again, she wasn't exactly focused on the mailboxes when she stormed away from her office. Taped to the candy bar was another small note; one identical in design to the note attached to the bakery box. ' _Another gift? When did they put this here?_ ' she thought to herself as she quickly opened the note.

 _Keep doing a great job!_

 _Here's something to help_

 _Keep you moving!_

 _Secret Santa_

Hinata couldn't help the soft smile that formed on her face as she read the encouraging note. She carefully detached it from the candy bar as she walked into her office and stood it next to its sibling on the corner of her desk. Hinata felt a warmth inside her chest that she identified immediately as extreme gratitude. It may have only been a simple candy bar… but it was such a thoughtful gift, and given at such an opportune moment, that Hinata decided that her Secret Santa was going to get a heartfelt hug when they weren't so secret any longer.

Decision made, Hinata then tore open the wrapper and took a very unladylike bite of the chocolate-caramel-nougaty goodness to fuel up. Goodness knew she would need it to deal with the fallout of Naruto's hotheaded idiocy, however correct his points may have been. Seriously! Sometimes she just wanted to _throttle_ that man!

XXXXXXXX

'THAT GUY TEX IS REALLY A ROBOT. AND YOU'RE HIS BOYFRIEND. SO THAT MAKES YOU… A GAY ROBOT.' 'YEAH… THAT'S RIGHT… I'M A GAY ROBOT…'

"Grand Central Station!"

" _You let that stupid thing play all the way through every time, don't you?_ "

"Yup~!"

" _Idiot…_ "

"So what'cha need, Bastard?"

" _Hnn… It's not really about me, per se… but I did want to run an idea by you._ "

"Shoot."

" _So you know how I'm not the greatest at expressing myself, right?_ "

"You and eighty-five percent of the American male population, yeah. Go on."

" _Well, instead of getting my Secret Santa a normal gift-_ "

"Okay, let me stop you right there, because I can see where this is heading and neither of us will enjoy the end result if I don't. I swear on all that's holy, if you ask Sakura to marry you in lieu of an actual Secret Santa gift-"

" _Wait! How did you know that I'm her Secret Santa?!_ "

"Read it over your shoulder before you could minimize it. Anyway! As I was saying! If you ask her to marry you as your 'gift' and I don't stop you, we're both as good as dead."

" _How do you figure?_ "

"Okay, let's take this idea of yours to its logical conclusion. Shut up! Me. Logic. Har har. Moving on!"

" _Hn._ "

"You ask Sakura the big Q. Regardless of her answer, the gossip grape vine _will_ carry the knowledge of the event in some way, shape, or form, through methods unknown to anyone with a Y chromosome, directly to my mom. Who will then immediately tell _your_ mom. Who will then be on your ass like white on rice on a paper plate in a snow storm for not allowing her to be there to see it or take pictures, because your mom adores Sakura and is just as eager for eventual grandkids as _my_ mom is. Then _both_ of them will jump all over my ass for not stopping you in the first place, because, _of course,_ as your best friend, I would have been in the know. Thanks for that, by the way."

" _Hn._ "

"Then, after they were done stomping new mud holes into us, we would both be subjected to our respective mothers' 'Woe Is Me Where Did I Go Wrong Raising My Son' spiel. _Then_ we would be eventually guilted into 'Making It Up' to them by having to buy them a spread of their favorite treats and/or treating them to a Mother/Son Date where they drag us to a nice restaurant dressed up in our Sunday Best while our dads and your brother sit at home together laughing at us while drinking hard liquor and watching sports on T.V."

" _Hn…_ "

"Yeah. 'Hn…' is right! Get Sakura an actual gift for Secret Santa and save popping the Question until Saturday. Preferably _before_ I show up so that I can avoid the inevitable squeals of joy from our excitable mothers."

" _Speaking of which, your mom asked my mom to tell me to get on your case about bringing a date Saturday. This is me officially 'getting on your case.' Try to not bring anyone I can't stand._ "

"Just for that, I think I'll ask Ino. It'll be like high school all over again!"

" _Idiot. Then you would have to deal with the catty dialogue, too. With no Mister Umino there to act as a buffer._ "

"Crap… Forgot about that."

" _Hn. Anyway, thanks for the advice. I'd better go figure out what to buy._ "

"Good luck, have fun, don't die~!"

" _Idiot._ " *click*

"Hmm… I think this one looks the best." *snip* "Now the plant food goes into the vase… add water." *shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh* "Recut the stem at an angle while it's submerged." *snip* "And finally remove the leaves below the water line. There! All ready. Just need to drop this off, then go grab the coffee."

XXXXXXXX

Sunday morning greeted Hinata with the joy of six inches of snow. Worse yet, the forecast called for another six to eight inches before the day was done. This only annoyed Hinata further as she trudged her way through the parking lot, slipping hither and thither and attempting to _not_ fall on her ass in the process of making it to the door. A native Northerner, she was not.

As a reward for their hard work, Hinata had given her team half the day off today to somewhat recharge their batteries before showing up at noon. Unfortunately, she did not include herself in that break. There was simply too much work for her to do to afford herself any time off. She was almost through the worst of the snow drifts and piles in the lot when she felt her feet go in opposite direction. She didn't _quite_ end up with her face in the snow, but it was a near-miss thing as she caught her fall with both hands in a drift.

' _Stupid ice…_ ' she mentally grumbled as she prepared to push herself back onto her feet. However, before she could put plan into action, she was startled by a firm grip being applied to her upper arm that immediately, yet carefully pulled her to her feet.

"You okay, Miss Hyuuga?" She turned to see a concerned-looking Naruto keeping her vertical. He had on his customary burnt orange heavy jacket and was carrying a pair of drink carriers filled with coffee cups with his free hand and arm. How he wasn't spilling it everywhere was beyond her, but Naruto seemed to have no issue keeping his footing in these treacherous conditions.

Hinata could tell her face was flushed, but she couldn't tell if it was caused by the cold, the fact that she had almost eaten snow the hard way, or the fact that the most confusing and surprising man she had ever known was able to pick her up from the ground like she weighed nothing. She realized that Naruto was now looking at her with more concern at her lack of response and mentally shook herself. "I'm fine, thank you. Just a bit surprised, really. It's more slippery than I thought it would be," she admitted as she wiped her hands on the bottom of her jacket to get the snow off.

Naruto gave her a quick once over, then let go of her arm once he was sure she had her feet firmly under her. "Good. I was a bit worried when I saw you disappear below the roofs of the cars," Naruto said with a nod and a smile. "Come on. Let's get out of this crap."

He took a step away from the cars into the main drive, then turned and offered his free arm to her to hold on to. Hinata looked at Naruto, then to the offered arm and back again before giving him a small smile and taking his arm. They slowly made their way toward the main doors of the building, as Hinata tried valiantly to keep her feet under herself.

"How are you not slipping?" she finally asked after the fifth time her feet tried to get away from her. Naruto chuckled as removed his arm from her grasp and gently, yet firmly placed his arm around her back and waist. Hinata was _not_ blushing… she was just flushed from the cold. Oblivious to any complexion changes his actions might have caused, Naruto focused his attention towards their feet.

"Keep your knees slightly bent and balance almost all of your weight on one leg," he instructed, being sure to hold onto her as he demonstrated by slightly lifting one leg off the ground. "Then place your other foot forward a bit," he put words to action. "And shift the weight smoothly to the other foot. Then rinse and repeat. When you do it right, it sort of looks like a waddle, but you almost never lose your balance or slip. Give it a try, but go slow at first." With that, he removed his arm from around her and moved his hand to lightly hold her upper arm while she attempted his method of snow walking.

After a few aborted attempts, Hinata managed to imitate Naruto's walk enough that she was able to keep her balance all the way to the door. Neither of them brought up how Naruto's hand never left her arm until he let go to open the door for her, nor did they try to start another conversation; both seemingly content in the rare amicable silence between them.

It wasn't until they stepped through the doors to the Quality Assurance department that the silence was broken by Hinata's small gasp.

One of the spare office chairs had been positioned next to her office door and sitting on the chair was a single white lily in a vase with a small card taped to the lip. Hinata turned to check Naruto's reaction, only to see him raise an eyebrow and turn to look at her. "Secret admirer?" he asked with a touch of amusement.

She let out an involuntary giggle and shook her head. "Secret Santa, I think," she corrected as they both started walking over to the chair. "They've been sneakily leaving me all sorts of small gifts throughout the week. Frankly, I find it equally charming and frustrating." She kneeled down to check the condition of the flower as, unseen by her, Naruto's composure slipped for a moment. "I haven't been able to figure out who it is, but I've made it a game with myself to try and guess who it is before Friday's big reveal."

The flower's stem was cut at an angle and all of the leaves had been removed below the waterline of the vase. It also looked as if the lily had been cut fresh just that morning. It seems that her Secret Santa knew something about plant care. Interesting… ' _Ino, perhaps?_ ' she thought to herself. It was plausible. Ino's parents were florists a few towns over, so it wasn't out of the realm of possibility… As a team leader, Ino also understood the need for a sugary boost when crunch time really got rough… And Ino also helped her finish off the cinnamon buns. ' _Could it really be her?_ '

The puzzle pieces all certainly _seemed_ to fit.

Naruto chuckled as he pulled one specific cup free from the carrier and held it within easy reach of her. "Here, one caramel mocha to start the day right." When she stood up and took it from him with a touch of surprise, he gave her a casual wave and smile. "Good luck with your Secret Santa. I'm going to go deliver the rest of these," he said, indicating the coffee carriers. Hinata momentarily wondered why Naruto had gotten her coffee when she hadn't asked him to, but then remembered that he had been asking around the office about who would be here this morning before he left yesterday.

It seemed that despite their ongoing… issues with each other, Naruto still deemed her worth the courtesy of being included in his coffee run. He had even remembered her habitual order from the many months since he had last done so.

Naruto then turned away to make his deliveries, starting, apparently, with Ino's as he knocked loudly on her office door with an almost wicked smile. "Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey, Ino! Got your usual macchiato~!" he sang cheerily. The responding frustrated growl from within the darkened office told Hinata all she needed to know about how Ino felt about being awoken, coffee or no coffee.

She turned her attention back to the vase, then picked it up and brought it into her office, turning on the light as she walked by. She set her coffee on the desk and removed the card taped to the vase.

 _For your collection_

 _Secret Santa_

Hinata held the vase at arm's length to admire the flower for a moment, then set it on top of her filing cabinet. She would go find a phone book and some scissors somewhere and press the flower later today. With a smile, she placed the card alongside the others on her desk and divested herself of her jacket and hat to prepare for the day's work.

XXXXXXXX

'ONCE AGAIN, I AM HANS!' 'YA, UND I AM FRANZ!' 'UND WE ARE HERE TO PUMP- *CLAP* - YOU UP!'

"Hey, mom. What's up?"

" _How is everything working out, kid?_ "

"So far, so good. Thanks for letting me have a lily out of your greenhouse, by the way. She hasn't cottoned on to me yet, but the timing on the gift drops is getting trickier. She's on the hunt and trying to catch me in the act."

*giggle* " _Three down and one more to go before we can call the operation a success. Think you've got what it takes to pull off the last one without getting caught?_ "

"I'll just think ninja-y thoughts and pull something out of thin air to make it happen if worse comes to worse."

" _In what way do you resemble a ninja at all? You habitually wear orange and have the loudest mouth of any of your peers. Honestly, I'm impressed you've managed to do as much as you have without something throwing a monkey wrench into the whole plan._ "

"Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence, mom…"

" _Just calling it like I see it, kid. My advice is to just keep a sharp eye out for the opportune moment and don't be afraid to manufacture an opening if you have to._ "

"Hmm… that's actually some pretty good advice. I think I know just how to do it, too. Thanks, mom!"

" _Anytime, kiddo~! Don't forget to invite her to Christmas Eve dinner when this is all over, okay~?_ "

"Moooom!"

" _Love you! See you on Saturday!_ " *click*

"Grrr… She's lucky I love her so much…"

XXXXXXXX

Hinata glared at the jewel case sticking partially out of her mailbox as she stood in her office's doorway. It had literally _not_ been there sixty seconds before when Hinata had walked into her office. She had checked. How the _hell_ did her Secret Santa manage to pull off that kind of timing without her noticing? Hinata reviewed the last couple of minutes in her head while continuing to stare. She had walked back from Mizuki's office, where she had forcibly and verbally removed his head from his ass. He had tried to defend his idiocy, citing 'thoroughness,' but Hinata had shot that excuse down faster than Naruto could kill a bowl of ramen.

Naruto and Kiba had found a bug, tracked it back to the line of code causing it and promptly exploited it to crash the build. The Software Engineers said they already knew the bug was there. They had explained that it was caused by a pointer not finding the file it was looking for; which they had already fixed in the build Q.A. was being sent this afternoon. However, because Mizuki had told his team to try and tear it apart, his team was literally doing nothing productive. So she had been forced to go over and get them directed at work that still _needed_ to be done. After that, she had checked her inbox for new reports, gone in her office, sat in her chair, leaned back and closed her eyes in an attempt to calm herself down. She quickly gave it up as a bad deal and decided to go unload on Ino.

And now she was here staring at a disc in her mailbox. No sounds. No distinctive scents. No one in sight. Seriously, though. _How_ did they manage to sneak anything into her box while she was sitting right in her office in that span of time? Hinata knew that she wasn't _that_ out of it to miss someone walking past her doorway. So that meant that her Secret Santa _must_ be someone from a different team, right? Her team would have had to walk past her door to get to the mailboxes. Even if she had missed them going in one direction, she never would have missed them going the other way, too. Or did they even walk by her office at all? Her team constantly coordinated with people in other teams, so the fact that no one walked by her office door didn't necessarily eliminate them from the running.

With a small sigh of frustration, Hinata walked over to get a closer look. She deduced that it was a music CD from the custom artwork on the front that read ' _Classical Mix_ ' with a spiral design in the background. She picked up the case and flipped it over, hoping it might give her some clue to the identity of her Secret Santa. On the back was only the same custom artwork spiral with the words ' _Spiraling Whirlpool Productions_ ' below it. Something about the name and art tickled the back of her mind. With only two days left to figure it out, Hinata knew that this was probably her last and best chance to solve the mystery.

' _No note?_ ' she wondered as she flipped it back over and wandered back into her office. ' _No, it's probably…_ ' She pried open the case as she sat at her desk to find the CD and missing note within. Hinata smiled at her correct guess and pulled the card out of the case to read it.

 _Home stretch!_

 _Here's some tunes_

 _To help you relax._

 _Secret Santa_

Of the ten things she had listed on her questionnaire as things she liked and would accept as a Secret Santa gift, her Secret Santa had now gotten her four of them, and despite how much they had already gotten her, she didn't doubt that they were saving the best for last. Still, she couldn't help but wonder what else they _could_ get her without going over the fifty dollar limit. Maybe she was giving her Secret Santa too much credit?

' _That still leaves the question of_ who _it is, though._ ' She had already marked off all of the men on her team from her mental list. She had figured out that Sasuke had gotten Sakura and Kiba had gotten Naruto early last week. Sai she hadn't figured out yet, but, regardless, he was so socially inept that he wouldn't have ever conceived the sort of gift blitz that she'd been the target of. Lee couldn't shut up about getting to be Ino's Secret Santa. And Naruto…

Well, with how they had been constantly butting heads recently, especially over the last nine days… Just, no. The coffee and help walking to the building on Sunday had been a nice reprieve from the norm for them, but that had been all that it was. Things had returned to business as usual the same afternoon and stayed that way ever since. Though, if she was being honest, she had been the one to revert first…

Sakura and Temari were being mum about the whole thing, but she had deduced that they both had gotten people on other teams. That left her with Ino as the only likely candidate. Unless she had completely missed her guess and it was someone from a different team, that is.

With a mental shrug, she added the card to the collection on the corner of her desk and turned her attention back to the CD case. Opening it, she saw that the inner cover had the track list for the disc. She saw many of her favorites and several that she had never heard of. Going by the selection that she did know, she trusted it would be enjoyable to leave the CD on repeat.

With that thought, she smiled and put the disc into her computer. After loading up the music player, she chose the CD from the list and clicked Play. As the opening notes of "Moonlight Sonata" filled the office, Hinata noticed an e-mail notification pop up in the lower corner of her screen. She quickly maximized her e-mail program and saw a number of e-mails that she had missed in the few minutes that she'd been away from her desk.

She checked the clock and realized that it was getting close to 6:00 P.M. She deleted the few unimportant follow-on e-mails after a quick perusal, but the last one to come in was from the Software Engineering team informing all and sundry that the tentative final full build had been compiled and uploaded for testing. While it was fantastic news for the team, Hinata couldn't help but groan, prop both elbows on her desk and place her face into both hands.

' _Of course they're ready to have the finished product tested right at the_ end _of the workday. When_ else _would they logically have it ready?_ ' she thought acerbically as she lifted her head enough to look at the monitor again. She was running on fumes by this point of the day and she knew that most of her team were either in the same boat as her, passed out at their desks, or had already gone home for the day to take care of personal business. She debated internally whether or not to recall everyone and get this, hopefully, last build tested as quickly as possible.

Duty warred with compassion for several long seconds before duty inevitably won out. Decision made, Hinata stood and went to tell her team the news. Unfortunately, as she exited her office, she recognized the grey jacket and shaggy hair of Kiba Inuzuka leaving through the main door. She went to go out and call him back, but remembered that he mentioned that he needed to go home to let his dog, Akamaru, out and take care of a few errands. Coming up short, she instead turned towards her team's area and prepared to let everyone know. She'd get Kiba back later.

"Everyone, can I have your attention, please?" she called out as she stood at the end of the aisle. She waited the few expected seconds for her team to put games on pause or finish up what they were doing. Then she waited a few more seconds. After waiting for almost thirty seconds with absolutely no response from anyone, Hinata confusedly began walking down the aisle to see what the issue was.

Everyone was gone. Every cubicle was empty. The only one that looked even remotely like the occupant was still in the building was Naruto's. His jacket was draped over the back of his chair, car keys were on the desk by the monitor and his sports bag was on the floor next to his filing cabinet. Yes, definitely still in the building. Actually, now that she was paying attention, she could hear his distinctive footsteps coming from around the back side of the room towards their section. She turned to the back of the aisle and waited, annoyance clear to see.

Naruto rounded the corner, looking ready to fall asleep on his feet and obviously running on autopilot. A small tug of sympathy pulled in her chest, but she viciously squashed it and focused on the matter at hand. "Mister Uzumaki," she began, startling Naruto and causing him to jump a bit. "Where did the rest of the team go?"

Naruto stared at her, uncomprehending, momentarily before blinking rapidly, as if he hadn't expected her to be there. Finally, he seemed to shake the cobwebs out of his brain and she could tell he was going over everything in his head. "Kiba went home to take care of Akamaru… Sai went to grab take-out… Sakura and Sasuke went for dinner and a movie… Lee headed down to the gym… Temari… I don't actually know where she is…" he trailed off as he turned to poke his head into her cubicle. "Ah, says on her whiteboard that she's at the hospital visiting her youngest brother." He nodded with satisfaction as he turned his attention back to Hinata and started walking towards her. "And I was just about to head home to water my plant, grab a quick shower and some grub before coming back here to crash at my desk for the night," he finished as he started to move around her to get into his cubicle.

As much as she _really_ wanted to just leave the situation be and let her team have the night off, she knew that the sooner they got the job done, the sooner they could go back to their normal schedules and be _finished_. So, with sternness in her voice and on her face that she didn't truly feel, she crushed their plans with three simple words.

"Change of plans."

"What?" Naruto's head turned to stare in disbelief at Hinata so quickly that she was worried he might have hurt himself. However, she did not change her tone or facial expression.

"The final build was just uploaded. I'm recalling the entire team to get the jump on it so that we can be finished with this project as quickly as possible," she explained, hardening her heart as she forced herself to finish. "I need you to call Sai and Kiba. Let them know what's going on and get them back in here. Tell Kiba to take care of Akamaru first. I'll handle Temari, Sakura and Sasuke." She knew what was coming. She'd expected it, even. She just had to withstand it now.

Naruto's stare was rapidly heating up into a glare while his face lost some of its pallor and his shoulders tensed up. She could almost literally see his temper come to the fore in response to her cold declaration that the team's personal plans were less important than their work. Hinata was mentally counting down in her head to Naruto losing his cool completely and getting in her face about the issue. In fact, they were already almost face to face as it was, but she held her ground and didn't break eye contact with him.

Unexpectedly, Naruto closed his eyes and took a long, slow breath as he visibly forced himself to calm down. He then took a step back, faced her fully, and opened his eyes, which were now showing none of his previous anger. "What about Lee?" he asked, immensely surprising Hinata. Where did the anger go? Where was the fight? Naruto wasn't one to let something like this go! For a moment, Hinata's brain was too busy trying to process this abnormal behavior to form the answer to Naruto's question.

Naruto, however, just stared evenly at her, patiently waiting for her response. Finally shaking herself clear of her surprise, Hinata allowed some of her coldness to fall away. "If you have a change of clothes with you, go ahead and head down to the gym for a shower like you planned. Just let him know then. _After_ you call the others, though, please." She already knew that Naruto habitually had a spare set of clothing in his bag and toiletries in his desk drawers, so they both knew she was merely politely telling him that he was a bit ripe while simultaneously letting him get a small part of his expected reprieve.

Naruto's nod and small smile reassured her that he wasn't going to suddenly shift gears and lose his temper again, so she turned and began walking away. "I'm going to go set up the coffee pots in the break room after I make my calls. Let the team know that I'm getting pizza and lots of caffeinated beverages delivered, so if they want something else, they'd better pick it up on the way back," she called out without looking back. She knew that the worst part was now past.

Naruto was always going to be the hardest one to convince to go along with this plan. He had effectively become her second-in-command - without having an official title stating as such - in spite of, or perhaps because of, how they were at odds with each other so often. Getting him on board with seemingly no fight at all would give her the leverage needed to get the rest back at their desks. She knew her team would follow Naruto and her combined lead without much complaint unless there was a legitimate issue that needed to be handled.

' _This may be the first time in four months that we've shown a united front for the team_ ,' she mused while stepping into her office. ' _Now if I could only get him to stop ignoring my e-mails…_ '

As she sat back at her desk and picked up her phone, she paused momentarily, looked at the monitor, grabbed her mouse, moved the cursor on the screen, and set her new CD to repeat with a smile.

XXXXXXXX

" _Riiiiing…_ " *click*

" _The Number You Are Trying To Reach Is No Longer In Service. Please Check The Number You Are Dialing And Try Your Call Again._ "

"Dad, I need you to pass mom a message when she gets out of the shower."

" _The Mother You Are Trying To Reach Has Been Waiting For An Update From Her Progeny._ "

"Dad, if you don't knock it off, I'm not going to warn you about Saturday's surprise."

" _Hold up now, son. Let's not be hasty. What's this about a message and a surprise?_ "

"That's what I thought, old man. Anyway, tell mom 'Mission Success.' If she presses for details, tell her that it was a close call and that I thought she had caught me for a minute there. As for the surprise, _do not_ tell mom this. Understood?"

" _Yeah, sure thing._ "

"I'm serious as hell, dad. I need you to promise me. Mom does not find out. At all."

" _Wow, it must be pretty bad if you're strong-arming me. Okay, I promise. Hurry up though, I hear your mother getting out of the shower._ "

"Okay, brace yourself. Sasuke is planning on popping the Question to Sakura on Saturday. Do what you will with that information except allow it to fall into mom's hands or ears."

" _Well, shit… I'll make contingencies. Thanks for the warning, Naruto. That would have been bad to go into blind._ "

"What's a good son for, right? Gotta go catch Lee before he leaves the building. We're going full-tilt here at work tonight. Don't expect to hear from me until at least Friday afternoon."

" _Understood. I'll let your mother know so she doesn't send out the search parties. One last thing: Any change in the number of place settings we'll need for Saturday?_ "

*sigh* "Not you, too… Look, I… I don't know right this minute. Have an extra ready, just in case, but I'm making _no_ promises. It'll all depend on how the next forty-eight hours go. Good enough?"

" _For government work. I'll keep that under my hat for now, but let me know by Friday night one way or the other, okay?_ "

"Sure thing, dad. Gotta jet now. I see Lee heading for the doors. Love you, bye!" *crackle-crackle-krshhhhhh* "Lee! Hey, wait up a sec! Hinata's got us putting in extra hours tonight. She needs everyone back in the office to test out the final build."

"Aaaallllll-right! This will be the perfect chance for me to show the lovely Ino how hard of a worker I am! Naruto, my friend! Thank you for informing me about this momentous change in the schedule! I will head back as fast as my legs can run!"

"Lee! You're not supposed to… aaaand he's gone. I swear, sometimes that guy makes the Energizer Bunny look like it needs to go Full Try-hard to keep up with him."

*chuckle* " _It's good to know my son associates with such unique people. Builds character._ " *click*

XXXXXXXX

"Thank you for all of your hard work, everyone," Hinata said with a smile as she stood in the aisle of her team's section. It was just after 9:00 A.M on Thursday, a full thirty-nine hours ahead of schedule, and her team had completed their playthroughs of the, hopefully, final build. She had gone over her team's progress throughout the night and, between all of them, they were only able to find six errors in the entire game.

Admittedly, three of them were where Naruto exploited the same bug in three separate locations to effectively speed run the entire game in under an hour. A bug that he had been breaking maps with throughout the entire project, to boot! Even as tired as Naruto was all night, after pulling off that particular trick, the smile had yet to leave his face. She doubted that he was going to let the Software Engineers live it down, either.

"I apologize again for interrupting everyone's plans for this, but I am extremely proud of everything this team has accomplished," she continued as she looked upon the tired, but content expressions of her team. They really had put in hard work over the last thirteen hours, but it had been well worth it. They were done! "You all have earned a solid break. So I want everyone to go home, recuperate for the rest of the day, and show up tomorrow at noon for the exchanging of Secret Santa presents."

Hinata's smile widened as her team's cheer washed over her. When it had died down a bit, she went on. "So long as the S.E. team doesn't send us anything else by then, I plan to kick you all free for the weekend right after that." Her team's second cheer put the first to shame and caused more than one head to poke over cubicle walls or out of office doors in curiosity. "Now get out of here. I don't want to see your faces back in here until tomorrow!"

Laughter followed her back to her office, where she began packing her things in her bags. She had worried about dealing with the garbage from the team's impromptu pizza party, but it had been effectively taken out of her hands as the other teams descended upon the leftovers like a pack of ravenous wolves as soon as they had come in for the day.

She could hear her team leaving in ones and twos behind her as she went through her mental 'Going Home' checklist before nodding her head, satisfied that she hadn't forgotten anything. As she closed her office door, she decided to check her section to make sure nobody had forgotten anything in their haste to leave.

Desk by desk, she verified that the only things left were her team's customary desktop baubles and clutter. When she got to Naruto's desk, however, she paused and simply stared.

Naruto had propped his feet up onto his desk and was leaned back in his chair with a lightweight holiday-themed blanket spread over him. The sound of his breathing was long and even, a sure indicator that he had truly fallen directly to sleep. Hinata was glad that he had made the decision to sleep at his desk instead of trying to make the drive home as tired as he was. She had been prepared to put aside her anger with him and offer to drive him home if he had attempted to leave on his own. Angry she may have been with him, but she still… liked him.

Truly, it was difficult _not_ to like him, even when he was at his worst. Right now, though, was not his worst by any stretch of the imagination. His golden locks and bright blue eyes were enough to make any girl take a second look. Add his personality to the mix and Hinata was honestly surprised that more of the women in their office hadn't tried to make a play for him. In the privacy of her own mind, she could freely admit to herself that his sleeping face was very cute, indeed. However… something was missing from the picture before her.

She thought about it momentarily, scanning him from head to toe, before it hit her what was missing. Hinata grinned as she edged around his sleeping form, reached down, opened the bottom drawer of his desk, and pulled out his goofy looking sleeping cap. She then quietly closed the drawer, turned, and carefully pulled the cap over his head and down over his eyes to help block out the light. He never stirred except to shift his head slightly, as if to assist her efforts. ' _There. Just right._ '

On a whim, Hinata leaned down and positioned her mouth next to Naruto's head, then whispered softly. "Thank you for all the hard work you've put in… and for putting up with my attitude with you. I still don't know why you keep ignoring me, but I promise that I'll try to tone it down from now on, Naruto. You've earned at least that much from me regardless of your reasons." Only Naruto's soft breathing answered her.

Satisfied, she turned to finish checking the last few cubicles before heading home herself.

As the door closed behind her and her footsteps faded from his hearing, Naruto allowed himself a small satisfied smile. That was the first time in four months that she had called him by his first name. Sometimes it was the small victories that made all the difference.

"Guess you win our bet, mom," he mumbled blearily. His mother had assured him that there must have been some sort of misunderstanding that caused Hinata's change in attitude towards him. That he just needed to man up and ask her up front why she had changed how she acted towards him. Turns out that his mom was spot on. "I promise I'll finally man up and straighten it all out… tomorrr…ow…" Naruto drifted back to sleep, his words slurring back into soft, even breathing.

XXXXXXXX

' _RING RING RING! RING RING RING! PHONE CALL! PHONE CALL! RING RING RING! RING RING RING! PHONE CALL! PHONE CALL! RING RI-_ '

*grumblegrumble* "Hello…?

" _Ah, I apologize if I woke you up, Mister Uzumaki. I can call back later if I caught you at a bad time._ "

*fshhh* *shhh* "Naw, it's fine. It's nearly dinner time. I needed to wake up anyway or I'll completely mess with my sleep cycle. Who is this, anyway?"

" _Oh, I forgot to introduce myself. This is Kakashi Hatake. I was wondering if you had time for me to ask you some questions._ "

*creeeak* "Wait, Kakashi Hatake… as in my department head, Kakashi Hatake?!"

" _Ah, I see my reputation precedes me. This simplifies things. So, did you have a few minutes free? It's not so important that it can't wait. I know that your team pulled an all-nighter to really kick the final build in the teeth._ "

"Yeah, sure I do. No problem at all. Just need a sec to clear the cobwebs upstairs. I'll check the break room for coffee to help me wake up, so go for it whenever you're ready."

" _You're still in the office? In that case, why don't you just come up to see me in my office after you grab your coffee. I'll let Tenten know you're coming so she can join us. Oh, and don't worry about your appearance. Strictly a 'come as you are' affair._ "

"Err… okay. Thanks? You know I, like, kinda slept at my desk, right?"

" _I assure you, Naruto, that I, too, am familiar with the sleeping arrangements common to 'crunch time' nor will I fault you for any minor fashion_ faux pas _you may be committing by coming to a meeting with a superior dressed in what you slept in today. Especially after the kind of work you've put in over the last two weeks. So grab your coffee and I'll see you in twenty minutes._ "

"Uhh… okay then. Thanks! I'll be right up, sir!"

" _Good to hear. You know where my office is?_ "

"No, but I can hear Ino griping at Shikamaru about something, so I'll ask her for directions. Knowing her, she'll want to know why, then freak out about every little thing wrong with what I'm wearing when I tell her I'm going to a meeting with you. Should be worth a good laugh."

" _You enjoy annoying one of your team leads?_ "

"It's not so much that I 'annoy' her as it is good-natured joking using her personality and common reactions as initiators. Ino gives as good as she gets. Have her tell you about the Ramen Incident sometime that it's not so busy."

" _If you're referring to the rumors I've heard about her threatening to pour a bowl of ramen down the garbage disposal in the break room and you ending up on your knees crying, then I think I understand the gist of the matter._ "

"Hey! For the record, sir, I was not crying. Those were manly tears of relief at recovering Noodle Ambrosia from near disaster."

" _I note that you did not refute being on your knees in the break room._ "

"Pictures were taken, sir. Okay, I've got my coffee and I'm all warmed up for my verbal joust with Ino. I'll be up shortly, sir."

*chuckle* " _Good luck, have fun, don't die!_ " *click*

"Ha! I knew I wasn't the only one who said that! Hey Ino! How do I get to Kakashi's office from here?"

"Take the elevator to the third floor, then an immediate right from the elevator to the end of the hall. Can't miss it. Why?"

"Got a meeting with him in fifteen minutes. Thanks for the directions! Later!"

"Oh, okay. See you… Wait, what?! Get back here, Naruto! You can't go to a meeting with my boss dressed like that!" *tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak* *grab*

"Ow, ow, ow! Not the ear! What the hell, Ino?!"

"There is no way in _hell_ that I'm letting you go to a meeting with Kakashi dressed like that. Get in here!" *CREAK-SLAM* *click-swooosh* "Okay, let's go with a sky blue shirt to match your eyes and some khaki slacks. Semi-casual will have to cut it for now."

"Ino… why do you have a closet full of men's clothing in your office?"

"For exactly these sorts of situations. Hinata does, too, but since she's not here, it's up to me to make sure you're relatively presentable." *clack* *shhhnk-shhhnk* *clack* "Here, put these on." *snag* *fwump*

"Hey! I was drinking that!"

"It was at least four hours old. I'll put a cup on for you from my Keurig while you get dressed."

"Err… in here?"

"Naruto, if you're not in the process of disrobing in the next thirty seconds, I'm going to have Shikamaru and Chouji come in here like the mafia and hold you down while I do it for you. You don't have anything I haven't already seen, anyway, so hurry the hell up. We're racing the clock."

"Yes, ma'am… changing clothes now, ma'am."

*swish* *swish-fffpt* *ziiiiip* *fwump* *shhhhh* *shhhhh* *ziiiiip* *swish*

"How did you know what size I wear? These fit better than some of my stuff at home."

"Doesn't look bad on you, either. And you'll just have to keep wondering. A girl's got to have _some_ secrets, you know? Anyway, here's your coffee. Get moving, bud." *click-creeeeeak* "Oh, and if he offers you anything good, you can keep the clothes as an early Christmas present from me. Good luck!"

"Ummm… Okay, thanks Ino. I think…" *click* *ker-chunk* "Well that was unexpected." *slurrrp* "Good coffee, though. I'll have to ask her what brand she gets later. Wonder what she meant by that last bit?"

XXXXXXXX

Author's Note

XXXXXXXX

I think I got all the characters' base personalities right, but sometimes things sound different in my head. Let me know what y'all think in the comments!

Looking forward to writing the next chapter! _Ja-ne!_


	2. Chapter 2

Secret Santa

By: Jolly

A Naruto Fanfic

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Author's note

XXXXXXXX

Hello again everyone! While I had intended for this story to only be two chapters, but it looks like it wasn't meant to be. This story really caught me by surprise with how long it's ended up becoming. Oh well, I guess I can count that as a good thing. I needed to give my writing muscles a good workout with how long it's been since my last updates, anyway. So long as all of you are enjoying it, then all's well that ends well. Alright, enough rambling! On with the story!

Enjoy!

XXXXXXXX

"…Can I sleep on it and get back to you with an answer? I don't think I can make a decision without really thinking about this."

"That's fine. Let Tenten or myself know what you decide by… let's say January 2nd. Is that acceptable, Naruto?"

"Yeah, that sounds good. No matter how this plays out, I really appreciate you considering me. Is there anything else?"

"No, I think that's all we've got. Tenten?"

"Nope. I've got zilch. Oh! Wait a sec. There was _that_ , wasn't there, Kakashi?"

"Ah, yes. Thank you for reminding me. Naruto, both Tenten and I would like to offer our congratulations to you on a well done Secret Santa Gift Blitz. It took us playing back the security footage to catch all of your drops, but your last delivery was exceptionally well executed. We thought she had you dead to rights when she confronted you, but it seems that she was more focused on the fact that her team was gone than being suspicious of you. Well done, indeed!"

*giggle* "Coincidentally, it was in the process of watching the footage for the drops that we picked up on Mizuki's transgressions. Izumo and Kotetsu had a field day going through his message traffic earlier. Real damning stuff, that. So thanks for giving us a reason to go over the security footage for the last couple of weeks, as amusing a reason as it may have been in the beginning. It could have been disastrous for the company if he had gotten all of that data out the door."

"Ehehehe… You're welcome? I honestly didn't think me secretly leaving gifts for Hinata would prompt anyone to check the cameras to find me out."

"And it wouldn't have if anyone had been able to figure out it was you doing it. All we kept hearing about up here was that someone kept leaving Hinata gifts, but that no one ever saw it happening. It got us curious."

"Well, then I'm glad more than one good thing came out of all this." *creeeak* "Thanks again for considering me. I'll get back to you soon with my decision."

*creak* *creak* "You have more than earned it. Have a good rest of your evening, Naruto. Be safe on the way home."

"You, too, sir." *fsh-fsh* "Tenten." *fsh* "If I don't see or talk with you again before the weekend, I wish you both a Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas, Naruto."

"Merry Christmas!"

*click-eeeeeee* *eeeee-kathunk*

"Twenty dollars says he accepts the job before Christmas."

"Hmm… sucker bet, Tenten. Who do I look like, Tsunade?"

XXXXXXXX

' _Riiiiing. Riiii-_ '

" _Hey kid! What's up? Heard you were putting in extra hours last night._ "

"Hey. Yeah. It was crazy, but we're all done now unless the S.E. team somehow manages to pull a revamped build out of nowhere before tomorrow. I almost lost my cool with Hinata when she dropped it in our laps, too."

" _Ouch… You didn't though, right?_ "

"No, but it was close. I had to remind myself that I was her Secret Santa and that it would mess everything up for tomorrow if I blew up at her. Besides, she was right in the fact that the sooner we knocked it out, the sooner we would be done."

" _Sounds like an intelligent, hard working girl. You could do worse than her for a supervisor, despite the crazy workloads and fights._ "

"Ha! Yeah, like Mizuki! Umm… about that… So I found out that he was even more of a dirt bag than I originally thought he was. Also, apropos of absolutely nothing whatsoever, Kakashi offered me a promotion."

*eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee* " _Oh, that's so great, Naruto! I'm so excited for you! When will you start your new job?_ "

"Actually… I didn't accept it yet. I asked him to give me a bit to think it over."

" _What's there to think over about it? Isn't this the kind of opportunity you've been hoping for? Now you won't have to work directly for that Hinata girl anymore, so you'll be able to hash out your disagreements more easily than you could before._ "

"That's just it, though, mom. I kind of want to bury the hatchet tomorrow before I make a decision one way or the other. I was offered a Team Lead position in my department, so I'll still be working directly with her on a daily basis. If we can't reconcile our issues… well, then I honestly don't want to keep working in a hostile environment with her anymore. I'll finish out the project and start looking for another job elsewhere. With a year and a full project under my belt, I should be able to find a similar job pretty easily. Or at the very least, I've got plenty saved up that will help if I have to get a job somewhere that doesn't pay as well for a while."

" _Wow… that's actually a very mature and well thought out decision, kid. But I'm sure it won't be a problem! Didn't I tell you that it's probably all one big misunderstanding?_ "

"Yeah… actually, about that… It turns out that you were right, mom."

" _I_ knew _it! So spill! I want details._ "

"I don't know all the details. She just let slip that she thought I was ignoring her when she thought I was asleep at my desk. So, I'm hoping she'll come and actually talk to me after the big reveal tomorrow. With any luck, we'll get it all sorted and have a good laugh about it later."

" _That's good to hear. I'm really glad that you're going to get it straightened out. Now! About that bet…_ "

"Yes, mother. I'll be sure to invite her to Christmas Eve dinner, regardless of how tomorrow plays out. I always keep my promises and I don't go back on my word. You know that."

" _Knew I raised you right. Now go get some more sleep. You sound beat._ "

"Yeah. Like I said, it was a rough night. I'll see you Saturday, okay, mom? Love you."

" _Love you, too, kid. See you Saturday._ " *click*

*crik* *crack* "Ugh… I'm going to be feeling that crick tomorrow. Okay… food, then sleep. In that order. Or I'm going to feel like a zombie tomorrow."

XXXXXXXX

Hinata was getting more and more confused. She was sitting at the head of the table in the Quality Assurance meeting room as person after person gave their gifts one at a time to each other. She had started things out by giving Chouji a fifty dollar gift card to the local Korean Barbeque place. He had then gifted his long-time best friend, Shikamaru, with a three-tiered chess set. It had continued in a similar fashion until Lee had given Ino a mall gift card and offered his services for a day as a "Bag Boy" for her shopping expedition.

Hinata had fully expected Ino to then turn back to her, reveal herself as her Secret Santa, and give her one final present. So, she was understandably confounded when Ino instead turned to Temari and gave her a box with a set of decorative fans inside. From that point on, Hinata had absolutely no idea what to expect. She had thought that she had figured it all out. She had eliminated her entire team. Ino was the only one who knew her well enough on a personal basis outside of her team that would have bothered to put so much effort into the secret gift-giving.

Had she been completely wrong and it was someone from a different team? She really didn't know most of them except in passing. Did she have some sort of secret admirer on another team, as Naruto had so jokingly put it? That would almost be sweet if it didn't seem so creepy. Seriously, who puts in this much effort for a Secret Santa event for someone you don't really know?

As she continued to frantically wrack her brain, attempting to shake loose some important detail that she overlooked, the gift giving continued on. There was an awkward moment when Mizuki's Secret Santa came up, but Kakashi had come down for expressly that reason. He 'accepted' it on Mizuki's behalf, and then handed over a fifty dollar Visa gift card to Kiba with an apology for the situation that Kiba quickly waved off. Money was money, after all.

Kiba then turned across the table towards Naruto and chucked a small box at him with a smirk. Naruto caught it easily with a quirked eyebrow and tore into it. He pulled out an orange cell phone case with a custom decal of a chibi Kiba and his dog, Akamaru giving a peace sign to a chibi Naruto. A small gift card fell away from the case that Naruto picked up from the table and examined. His face instantly brightened.

"Sweet! Ichiraku Ramen! Dude, I take back all the horrible things I've said about you in the last two weeks!" he stated with a wide smile. "Did your sister do the artwork? It looks like her style."

"Knew you would! As soon as I told Hana what I was getting you, she started sketching ideas and trying to learn how to make custom decals," Kiba explained with a shrug. "You know how she gets when she's got a pet project." Naruto only nodded in response as he returned his attention to his gifts.

He pulled out his phone and quickly snapped his new protective cover into place. "Fits perfectly and it looks great! Tell Hana I said 'thanks,' will you?"

Kiba quickly gave his assent as Naruto put his phone and gift card away. He then reached between his feet, pulled up his back pack, stood up and placed it on the table. He pulled out a beautiful hunter green velvet box shaped like a star that was held securely closed by a gold ribbon wrapped in the shape of a pentagram and tied off in a bow.

With a smirk firmly set on his face, Naruto turned and looked directly into Hinata's eyes, stepped around his chair, walked around the table towards her. ' _No._ ' Hinata couldn't tear her widened eyes from his even if she wanted to. ' _No, no, no!_ ' There was no way it could be him! After all of their arguments, sniping and verbal jabs at each other, there was absolutely no way _Naruto_ could have been the one to leave her all of those gifts and notes.

Naruto was now in front of her, holding the beautiful box out to her as the room sat in stunned silence. The only people in the room that did not have their mouth agape or covered with their hands were Naruto, who was smugly grinning, Kakashi and Tenten who were both watching the proceedings with obvious amusement. Hinata finally moved her gaze to the box before her and removed her hands from her mouth to take it from him.

"It was _you_ this whole time?" she asked, finally breaking the room's silence. Naruto merely nodded once then jutted his chin at the box, indicating that she should open her gift. Hinata looked back and forth from the box to Naruto a few times before finally placing the box on the table and untying the bow to begin the process of opening her gift.

After several long seconds, Hinata had all the ribbon free and placed to one side. She then gently lifted the top half away and revealed a small stuffed bear holding a small card identical to the ones adorning the corner of her office desk, thereby removing any remaining trace of doubt from Hinata's mind of Naruto being her Secret Santa. Picking up the card, she opened it, noted that it was in his normal handwriting, and read it aloud.

"I hope you've enjoyed all of your gifts, Hinata. Merry Christmas! Signed, Naruto Uzumaki – Secret Santa."

Hinata's eyes began to water slightly as she then turned her full attention to the stuffed bear within. The bear itself was nothing unique or special. She had seen dozens of them at the drug store selling for less than five dollars apiece. What had caused Hinata's reaction was the small t-shirt the bear was wearing.

White in color, it had a custom decal that read 'Secret Santa 2016' with each word on top of the other. However, Naruto appeared to have visited Kiba's sister to help with this final gift, as the decal also had two chibi characters. Atop the 'T' in 'Secret' stood a chibi version of herself, hand shading her eyes as she attempted to look for the chibi Naruto that was dashing from behind the'0' to the '1' wearing a Santa cap and carrying a large sack on his back.

Hinata couldn't help but give a slightly watery chuckle at how apt the illustration was. She turned her attention back to the room at large and saw that everyone was trying to get an angle to see what was inside. She quickly removed the bear and showed it to everyone, getting chuckles from the men and a round of 'aww's' from the women. Hinata glanced over at Naruto, who had retaken his seat, and saw him merely smiling contentedly as he ignored the room at large and gave her a small nod.

She decided then that she would have to do something for Naruto to make up for her behavior towards him. Hinata barely registered as Kakashi thanked everyone for their participation and called a close to the event.

"The Software Engineers haven't sent me any notifications of a new build in the pipeline, so I want everyone to finish anything essential that you still need to do and then get out of here to enjoy your holiday weekend," he said, resulting in the room breaking out into cheers and clapping. "I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I want you all to check in with your Team Leads on Monday for instructions on workforce needs for next week. Other than that, please stay safe and don't hesitate to call Tenten or myself if you need a ride after a night on the town." Kakashi paused for a moment and gave a stern glare to everyone in the room to drive home the point. "I want to see all of you here at work in the New Year. If that means I have to cancel or reschedule my plans to ensure that happens, I would much prefer that to any lesser alternative. Clear?" A round of assents met his approval. He was instantly cheerful once more, as if a switch had been flipped. "Good! Now get out of here!"

The room quickly became chaotic as everyone started to either file out or make their way to each other to compare gifts and make plans for the holidays. Hinata tried to find Naruto in the madness, but he seemed to have slipped out while she wasn't paying attention to him.

XXXXXXXX

Naruto dropped his backpack on the floor next to his sports bag as he flopped down into his chair, letting out a large breath as he leaned back. ' _Now that_ that _is over, let's check the e-mail one last time._ ' He sat up, powered on his computer and waited for it to boot up. A voice from behind him caught him slightly by surprise.

"I'm sorry."

Naruto turned in his chair to face his visitor with an impassive look on his face. Hinata was bowed over at the waist, apparently falling back on the customs she learned in her childhood, as she clutched her gift to her chest, the ribbon tightly grasped in one of her hands, and her hair covered her face so that he could only see her nose, cheeks and chin.

"What are you sorry for, exactly?" Hinata did not raise her head a millimeter.

"I'm sorry for how I've been treating you all these months. For how I'm been going out of my way to needle you and make your workday more difficult. I'm sorry for starting fights with you this week after how nice you've been and how hard you've been working. And most of all, I'm sorry that I never talked out my issues with you like a mature adult."

Naruto was silent for a few seconds as he processed all she had said, then sighed and stood up. He noted idly that his fellow team members were nowhere to be found, either completely avoiding them after walking into the scene or pointedly giving them privacy to bury the hatchet by not even attempting to return to their desks. Hinata still did not move from her position as he stood over her.

"I forgive you, Hinata," he began, causing her to finally raise her eyes to him. "Under one condition."

"Name it," she replied instantly. Hinata brought herself to her full height and looked him directly in his eyes as she waited for his answer.

"You have to tell me why you changed how you treated me in the first place."

Hinata's eyes widened in surprise and confusion. How could he not know _that_? "I… You…" She couldn't even form a proper sentence as she tried to process everything into some sort of sense. "That is… You…" Naruto looked on in confusion as she stumbled on her words, looking for all intents and purposes as if he had just smacked her in the face with a trout.

"'I', what?" he prompted, hoping to get her to actually complete a full sentence. His words caused her eyes to harden, before quickly relaxing into a firm annoyance.

Finally, she asked, "Why did you start ignoring my e-mails, Naruto?" It was now Naruto's turn to be confused. He vaguely remembered her mentioning that he had ignored her in his sleepy haze, but he didn't realize she had meant ignoring her e-mails.

Confusion still plain on his face, he replied, "Hinata, aside from your e-mails to the entire team, I haven't received a single e-mail from you in over six months. One day we were chatting about which games we enjoyed playing while growing up, and the next day, nothing." He reached behind his head and gave a quick scratch as he glanced to the side a bit. "I honestly just figured that I had said something inadvertently inappropriate or asked something too personal and you cut our conversation off. I thought that maybe you thought our conversations were getting to be more personal than was… acceptable, given our supervisor/worker relationship," he explained with a slight reddening of his cheeks.

Hinata's complexion also adjusted itself towards a more colorful tint, but her tone was prim as she responded. "While our talks may have been skirting the edge of acceptability in some cases, nothing we discussed would be considered improper by any stretch of the imagination. And besides," she paused and jutted her chin out in mock imperiousness. "Video games _are_ work-related, so I happened to find the question both appropriate in nature and relevant to your professional development, as I thought I made clear when I answered your question in my reply. Are you saying that you never received it?"

Naruto quickly shook his head. "Nope. Never got your response at all. I was actually really looking forward to your answer, so I was kind of bummed when it seemed like you weren't going to respond." His face twisted into a confused moue as he sat back in his chair and spun around to log into his computer. "Something's fishy here. How many e-mails have you sent me, personally, since… then?" He glanced over his shoulder as his screen displayed his desktop and automatically began loading his e-mail program.

Hinata stepped further into his cubicle and stood to the side of his chair as she focused on his screen. "The last e-mail I sent to only you was yesterday morning when I got home from work. I… haven't really attempted to send you a direct message for the last four months after it became obvious that you would only respond to e-mails addressed to one of the distribution lists, so I couldn't say how far back another like it would possibly be found." Naruto had manually hit the refresh command in the program to ensure that it pulled any recently received e-mails from the mail server, even though he knew the program did it automatically when first loading up. Less than thirty seconds later, the notification on the bottom of the program declared ' _All folders up to date_.'

They exchanged a look that was a mix between confused and annoyed. Naruto turned back to his computer and began quickly clicking through each of the folders in his mailbox. Inbox. Drafts. Sent. Junk. Deleted.

Nothing.

He couldn't find a single personally addressed e-mail from Hinata to himself. However, he absolutely believed that she was telling him the truth, so he decided to play a hunch. There were only two ways an e-mail could disappear from a user's inbox without said user removing it themselves. The first was if had never reached the user in the first place. That could only be done if there was a block or forward set up at the directory level.

Since Naruto had a good working relationship with Izumo and Kotetsu, he was pretty sure that they wouldn't do that to his account, even as a prank. Or at least, not for very long. They absolutely would have revealed themselves, and the prank, after a reasonable amount of time. Six months was _not_ a 'reasonable amount of time.'

The second way… Naruto changed tabs in the interface and selected the option to go into his Rules and Filters. He had never bothered to set any up after he started working for the company, but he knew they could be set up fairly easily after his Business Systems Technology course in high school taught him about it. The next screen appeared and…

"Son of a…!" Naruto cut the rest of the curse off with a snarl and a scowl. Then he turned to look up at Hinata. "Hinata, when our conversations got cut off, it was right around the time that Ebisu took a position in another department and Tenten was promoted to Assistant Director for the Quality Assurance department, right?"

Hinata's face scrunched slightly in concentration briefly, before she quickly nodded her agreement. "Yes, it was just after Tenten's promotion was made known if I remember correctly. The same day, in fact. Do you think that's relevant?" she asked with concern.

He nodded with surety. "Yeah… I do. That day was also the same day that I finally put a password on my workstation. I had forgotten because I didn't notice anything missing, but I came back from lunch that day and my chair, keyboard and mouse were all out of place. I checked all my notes and files, and even checked my Sent folder to check if anything had been removed or e-mailed from my computer, but when I didn't find anything I just set a password for my account and blew it all off. That," he said turning and pointing back at his monitor to the single Rule on the list. "Is something that I never set up… and according to the timestamp, it was created that very same day."

Hinata leaned closer and read through what the Rule did… and let out a gasp. "That filters all incoming e-mails from everyone in our direct chain of command directly into permanent deletion! Kakashi, Tenten, Ino, Ebisu, myself and even Tsunade are on there! Who wou-..." Her expression froze, then quickly became thunderous. "That no-good, lying, thieving bastard!"

As Naruto took a screen shot and saved it to his desktop, he turned to look up at Hinata. "Yeah, it's beginning to make a bit more sense now. The only thing I don't get is… well, why me?" he asked, perplexed. "Why did Mizuki only mess with my computer?"

The scowl on Hinata's face looked so out of place that Naruto unconsciously edged away from her. "Because you were the shoe-in for the position. How Mizuki knew about _that_ I suppose we'll never know." She glanced down at Naruto and her expression relaxed some. "All of the Team Leads were asked for recommendations for an in-house promotion rather than hire a new employee for the position. Tenten, Ino and I all gave your name to Kakashi. All you would have had to do was send an e-mail to Kakashi letting him know that you were interested in the position and it would have been yours."

Naruto was stunned. _He_ could have been the Team Lead instead of Mizuki? The other Team Leads had _recommended_ him? Why hadn't Kakashi mentioned _that_ last night? "Me? Why did you- why did _all_ of you put my name forward for being a Team Lead?" Hinata looked at him with a smile that seemed both patronizing and patient.

"Naruto, you may not have noticed, but within three months of you joining this team, every single team member was as willing to follow your lead as they were mine. Yes," she cut Naruto off as he began to open his mouth. "Three of my team went to school with you, which made it both easier and more difficult to integrate you into the team. That being said, the other three members knew nothing of you before you sat down at that desk and they each have multiple projects under their belt. That alone showed that you have the potential to be a great leader.

"And perhaps it has also evaded your notice," she continued, her smile turning smug. "Exactly how much time you spend assisting individual members from all of the teams compared to the amount of time you spend at your desk."

Naruto finally got a word in. "Well, I went to a few of them to ask for help, but as time went on, people would call me over to ask questions or advice. It didn't seem like a big deal," he explained with a shrug. Hinata nodded, agreeing.

"You're right. It wasn't a big deal. However, it was noticed and commented on. Especially when several of the more experienced team members would call you over before calling their Team Lead." Hinata leaned back against the wall of his cubicle and softened her expression. "The first time I complimented Temari for finding a new bug and she admitted that she had found it as a follow on to a bug _you_ had showed her, I knew that it would only be a matter of time before you had a team of your own."

One thing that Naruto had discovered early on in his days on the team was that Temari did _not_ give compliments. At all. She did, however, give credit where credit was due, which, when you boiled right down to it, amounted to about the same thing with her.

Naruto turned his attention away from Hinata and back to his monitor. After a few seconds of thought, he reached forward and pressed the Delete key. The Rule that had caused them so many problems vanished from the list as if it had never existed. He quickly closed the menu, opened a new e-mail and shot off his screenshot with a short note explaining what it was to the I.T. team. That done, he powered his computer down, pushed back his chair and stood up to face Hinata again.

"Are we cool, Hinata?" he asked with a small, hopeful smile.

Hinata responded in kind. "Yes, Naruto. I do believe we are."

"Great!" he exclaimed with a full blown grin. "Now I've got to fulfill a promise and I'm going to hope for the best, because I honestly do not know how this is going to play out." That said, he took a half step away from Hinata, mustered forth as much pomp as he could manage without busting his gut laughing, and calmly and clearly asked, "Miss Hyuuga, would you do me the honor of being my 'plus one' to my family's Christmas Eve dinner?"

Hinata stood agape at the blond man for a full five seconds before she burst out laughing. Naruto and 'proper decorum' did _not_ mix. A sound from over the cubicle wall in the next aisle caught Naruto's attention, but he brushed it off as unimportant in the face of Hinata's laughter. "Yeah, yeah. Yuck it up, Hinata."

"I'm sorry," she managed, still giggling slightly as she tried to control her laughter. "But I have to know. Who did you make a promise to… that you would do _that_?" Naruto again turned his head away slightly with a blush and scratched the back of his head.

"My mom." This set Hinata off on another bout of uncontrollable giggling. Again, sounds from the next aisle over caught Naruto's attention, causing him to narrow his eyes as he glanced at the top of the wall in that direction. He shouldn't have heard anything except the normal sounds and conversations of the other teams in that direction… which were currently absent. Odd. He turned back to Hinata, who was once again regaining control of herself. "Well?" he asked.

Hinata's grin faded a bit as she adopted a pained expression. "I'm sorry, Naruto, but seeing as you work for me, it would be inappropriate for me to join you on what could be construed as a date," she finally said, disappointment clear in her tone and body language. Whether it was disappointment that she couldn't go or disappointment that she had to turn him down after laughing at him, he couldn't tell… but it was disappointment, nonetheless.

Naruto nodded. "I understand. Hold that thought." Playing another hunch, since it had been going so well for him thus far today, Naruto angled his head up over the wall of his cubicle and raised his voice. "Hey, Kakashi!"

A moment of silence followed his call, while Hinata's eyes bulged and she turned to look over the wall as well, before the spiky silver hair and single non-covered eye of their boss poked over the edge. "Yes, Naruto?"

"I accept. When do I start?" He replied with a grin, satisfied that his hunch was correct.

Kakashi's head angled up in a thoughtful expression before returning his gaze at Naruto. "Immediately. However, seeing as I already dismissed everyone for the holiday, you won't be expected to move into your new office until Monday. Be sure to come see me after getting settled and I'll get you squared away on your new responsibilities." Kakashi gave one of his trademark closed eye smiles, not that they could see his mouth from their angle, and continued. "Congratulations on your promotion, Naruto. I'm sure that C Team will be extremely happy to know that they have a new Team Lead so soon after they lost their old one." Cheers and applause rose up from behind Kakashi, causing Naruto to climb up onto his desk to see over the edge.

The entire Quality Assurance department was in the next aisle and the adjacent cubicles to his, quite apparently eavesdropping on Hinata and his private conversation. He narrowed his eyes at one in particular. "Kiba, I know my Pompous is a little rusty, but it wasn't _that_ funny." The aforementioned man was almost purple with suppressed laughter as both Sasuke and Sakura had their hands firmly covering his mouth in an attempt to not give them away.

"As for the rest of you, _do you mind_?" he growled, causing more laughter to erupt from the crowd punctuated by Kiba's sharp, barking laughter as the couple finally released him now that the jig was up. He nodded at a few that bade him farewell and left as the group finally dispersed, then hopped down from his desk. He turned his attention back to Hinata, who was now so red that Naruto feared she may faint from overheating. "Whoa, you okay, Hinata?" He reached out to grab her shoulders to support her in case she fell, but his hands were knocked away by Hinata as she shook her head vehemently.

"No, no. I'm fine, thank you," she said quickly, face still red. "I was just embarrassed that everyone was listening in on our conversation without me realizing it. I'm usually much better about paying attention to my surroundings." Her color had lessened slightly, but she was still very clearly uncomfortable with the fact that the _entire_ department had been listening in.

Naruto chuckled at the situation, more amused by the fact that they had all gotten in on the action than upset that they were listening in on a private conversation. He decided to brush it off. "Well now that _that_ is handled, what do you say?" That seemed to bring her back to the present, as her complexion returned to normal.

"Did you just accept a promotion over a cubicle wall in the middle of asking me to dinner?" she asked with a hint of amusement. Without a doubt, this was a first for her.

"Yup~!" he replied with a wide smile, the 'P' making a popping sound. "Well?" he asked again. "Now that I'm no longer a member of your team, what do you say to joining mine and Sasuke's families for Christmas Eve dinner?"

"Your and Sasuke's families are close?" she asked, once again evading the question. Her mind was trying to parse through all the changes that had come about in the last fifteen minutes. She _wanted_ to go, but she didn't really know if that was her trying to make up for her behavior from the last six months or if she really wanted to go with him because she thought she would enjoy herself in his company. Naruto seemed to pick up on the fact that she was stalling and frowned in response.

"You can say 'no,' you know. It's not going to hurt my feelings, Hinata," he said as he changed the frown to a reassuring smile. "We've been sniping at each other for months now. I didn't expect you to just drop all of your plans and say 'yes' just because I asked after all of that. I just promised my mom that I would invite you to our family dinner because of a… an agreement we had that she was right about."

Hinata grew thoughtful at that last sentence as she turned the words over in her head. Realization hit her, causing her to giggle again. "You lost a bet with your mom? What was the bet about?" she asked through her laughter.

With a sigh and chagrined expression, Naruto explained. "That our fighting with each other was caused by a misunderstanding." He shrugged helplessly. "What can I say? Mom's usually right. Apparently, I just haven't figured out that I need to stop doubting her yet."

"I see," she replied with a thoughtful expression. "I assume that it's a 'Sunday Best' sort of affair?"

"Yeah. Especially with the surprise that's been planned… but you didn't hear anything about that from me," he quickly corrected himself with an innocent expression. Hinata narrowed her eyes at him, but let it slide instead of grilling him about it.

' _What the hell?_ ' she thought with a mental shrug. The only excuse she had at her disposal at this point was 'I don't want to, because I'm not interested in getting to know you better.' …Which was patently untrue. She would be lying to herself if she didn't admit that part of the reason why she recommended Naruto for the Team Lead position in the first place was so that she could potentially date him without causing a conflict of interests.

So, Hinata squared her shoulders, looked Naruto directly in the eyes, and put on her best 'princess' airs. "Very well, Mister Uzumaki. I shall allow you the honor of escorting me to this family gathering of yours on the morrow. When shall I expect you to call upon me?"

Naruto could only stare open-mouthed at her for a full five seconds before his composure completely dissolved into laughter. Hinata did not allow her façade to budge an inch. Turnabout was fair play, after all. Thankfully, Naruto's laughter didn't last more than a few tens of seconds before he gathered himself again. With a mirthful smirk, he, too, fitted his comportment to that of a 'proper' gentleman. "I shall arrive at half five to take you to my family's abode. Supper is scheduled for seven and the trip is expected to take an hour, so please be prepared for a long ride."

Hinata and Naruto now wore identical smiles as they began to chuckle. "I still need your address though," said Naruto as he pulled out his phone in its brand new protective case and opened up his contact card for Hinata's phone. After enabling it to edit the information, he flipped it around and handed it to her. "Here, just add it to your contact information and I'll plug it into the GPS later so that I can figure out when I need to leave to pick you up on time."

Hinata carefully took it from his grasp and quickly tapped out the requested information on the on-screen keyboard, then saved the information and handed it back to him. "There. Don't be late now, or I'll have to tell Kakashi that I was mistaken in my recommendation of you for the Team Lead position," she said with an impish smile as she began to move past him into the aisle. As she came directly alongside him, she paused, scrunched her face in thought momentarily, and then turned her head to look at him. "How _did_ you get that CD into my mailbox without me catching you, anyway?"

Naruto's face broke into a wide grin as he brought both arms up to cradle his head in his hands. "I hid in Chouji's cubicle while he was busy helping Shikamaru until you passed by from chewing out Mizuki and went into your office. Then I just walked across and slid it in and detoured all the way around the room to avoid your office. When you were waiting for me at my desk, I thought you'd caught me red-handed," he explained with a chuckle.

Hinata nodded after a moment. "I thought it might be something like that, but I wanted to be sure. I was in my office less than a minute and couldn't believe that I'd missed the drop. That was very well done, Naruto," she complimented as she lightly bumped him in his chest with her elbow. "Please be safe getting home, Naruto. I'm quite looking forward to tomorrow." With that, she walked away from Naruto to go put away her gift in her office and head home.

Behind her, a loud noise caught her attention that could have only come from Naruto's phone.

' _ONCE AGAIN, I AM HANS._ ' ' _YA, UND I AM FRANZ!_ ' ' _UND WE ARE HERE T-_ '

"Hey, mom! Good news! I kept my-..." His voice trailed off as she entered her office. She couldn't help but giggle at the absurdity of Naruto's mom's ringtone being an old SNL skit.

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"-promise to ask Hinata to Christmas Dinner!"

" _That's fantastic, son! What did she say?_ "

"Heheh… You'll be happy to know that she said 'yes.'"

" _Did you ask her like you were supposed to?_ "

"Yeeeesss, of course I did, mom! She even gave as good as she got! She went all 'I'm a family heiress and I'm too good for you, but I'll grace you with my presence anyway' on me. It was hilarious!"

*giggle* " _Well, good for you then! I'll tell your father to set an extra place at the table for her. When can we expect you two to show up?_ "

"Assuming traffic and weather aren't too bad, I should get us there around six-thirty or so. Has Sasuke said when he's going to get there?"

" _As a matter of fact, I just got off the phone with him. He told me that he, Sakura and his family should be over around six-ish. Why?_ "

"No reason, just curious. I didn't get the chance to ask him earlier because I was too busy chewing out the entire department for eavesdropping on Hinata and my conversation."

" _Oh? Do tell._ "

"I'll tell you tomorrow at dinner. It'll be funnier with all four of us telling the story from different perspectives. Need me to pick up anything on the way there?"

" _Nope~! I made double-sure that we had everything we needed yesterday. Just make sure to get here safely and I'll be happy._ "

"Can do, mom. I was just about to head out now that I'm done at work for the weekend." *fsssh* *fsssh* *ziiiiiip* *fsssssh* "All set to go. Anything else before I let you go?"

" _Nope, I think we're good, kid. I'll see you tomorrow! Love you!_ "

"Love you, too, mom." *fsh-scrrrk* "Oh, hey, let me get the door, Hinata."

"Thanks, Naruto." *click* *ker-chunk* "So…"

"So…?"

"Hans and Franz as your mom's ringtone? Seriously?"

"Ugh… She insisted that it _had_ to be her ringtone on my phone. Said it was a test of some sort. I tried to change it _one_ time and she chewed me out for almost a half hour. I never tried again... it wasn't worth it."

*giggle* "Sounds like your mom has a good sense of humor. Makes me wonder if you got yours from her or your dad…?"

"Heheh… Definitely both. I got mom's mischievous streak and dad's quick wit and idiot luck."

"Idiot luck…?"

"Sure. He got my mom to marry him, didn't he?"

" _Fu, fu, fu. ~My son's getting a girlfriend~! Hey honey! This Hinata girl got the Hans and Franz reference!_ "

"And how does that correlate?"

" _Oh? And is he bringing her tomorrow?_ "

"My mom was _totally_ not into my dad when they first met. It literally took dad three years and stopping a kidnapping attempt on my mom for her to start liking him."

" _Yup~! You know what that means, right?_ "

"What?! He stopped you mom from being kidnapped?"

*sigh* " _Yes, dear. According to your flawless logic, any girl that gets the Hans and Franz skit and doesn't run away is going to be the perfect daughter-in-law. I'm still not paying out on that bet until I see a ring on her finger._ "

"Yup~! You'll have to get them to tell you the story at dinner tomorrow. They tell it better than I do."

" _Pshaw! It's only a matter of time. I can wait a bit longer to tell you 'I told you so' once again. Eventually, you'll stop doubting my logic and just face the fact that I'm always right._ "

*giggle* "I'll be sure to do that. Be safe getting home."

" _Yes, dear. Now hang up the phone and stop listening in on them._ "

"You, too. See you tomorrow!"

" _Hmph… You're no fun._ " *click*

"Huh? Hmm… Huh… Could have sworn I heard my mom for a second there. Must have been hearing things."

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Author's Note

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I was going to keep going, but this seemed to be a good stopping point. HOPEFULLY, chapter 3 will be the last one, but who knows? XD

Looking forward to writing the next chapter! _Ja-ne!_


	3. Chapter 3

Secret Santa

By: Jolly

A Naruto Fanfic

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Author's note

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Hello again everyone! I hope everyone is having a wonderful year! I was hoping to finish this up before the 2017 holiday season... but my life went absolutely ape-crazy and I had to take the time to get my life straight before I worried about fan fiction again. That all being said... This is the final chapter of Secret Santa and it's been a blast of a time to get here! I hope everyone has enjoyed the ride with me!

Enjoy!

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"Aaaannnd done!"

With a pair of clicks, Hinata sent off the end of shift progress report to Tenten. That taken care of, she finally let out a long, relieved sigh before reaching over and picking up the clipboard to the left of her keyboard. She took a moment to check off the completed tasks from her list there and smiled when she realized that there was only one item left to do before she could head home for the day.

A pair of knocks on her office's door frame brought her attention to the tall, tanned blonde leaning halfway in with a bright smile on his face. He held up a stack of paper with one hand and waved it back and forth with a chuckle. "Got the bios for the new hires hot off the printers, Hinata!"

"Oh, thank God!" she exclaimed as she flopped back against her chair in a very unladylike manner and tossed the clipboard back to her desk. "How does this year's batch look?" she asked as she waved Naruto towards the comfy chair against the wall of her office. He was more than happy to oblige her and quickly parked himself in the second most comfortable chair in the room.

"Well, they're a... unique bunch, for sure," he replied with a smirk. "We've got two guys straight out of high school and a real odd girl coming over from EA-Tiburon." He pulled out a few sheets from the middle of the stack and passed them over to Hinata as he continued. "Blake Belladonna. Got her GED at 15, and applied immediately to EA-Tiburon. Seems they took a chance on her despite her age and it paid off for them. She's been working Quality Assurance for almost 3 years and has some pretty big projects under her belt."

Hinata paged over and browsed the list as she nodded. "This is a very impressive list. Why did she leave EA? With this much experience, I'm surprised she didn't try to move up the chain there."

Naruto's smile disappeared as he took a second to word his reply. "She was a shoe-in for a Team Lead position... but unfortunately, her personal life bled over into her professional life." Hinata looked up from the papers in her hand and quirked an eyebrow in silent query. "My contact in Tiburon told me that she and her boyfriend fell in with a really bad crowd. Long story short: she broke it off with the guy and the group they were a part of and immediately moved up here to try for a fresh start."

"Hmm..." Hinata leafed back through the paperwork and processed everything Naruto had told her. "Okay, unless one of the other two seems like a better fit, I think I'll take her onto my team and pair her up with Kiba until we're sure she's got herself settled. Who's next?" she asked as she laid Blake's bio on her desk.

Naruto chuckled, deciding to keep the little tidbit of information his contact had passed along to himself. Specifically how Blake's temperment and mannerisms were that of a quintessential catgirl... Hinata would find out soon enough that Blake and Kiba would likely get along as well as cats and dogs... literally.

"Well, next on the docket is Juane Arc... and frankly, you can take everything in here," he paused to wave another stack at Hinata, "and toss it in the wastebin." He handed over the papers and waited patiently for her to look them over.

As Hinata read through the packet, she became more and more impressed with what she saw. "I don't understand. This is a fantastic resume, Naruto!" She looked up at him with a small scowl. "Why would you want to pass him up?"

Naruto merely waggled a finger at her with a grin, leaned back into his chair and crossed his ankle over his knee. "First off, I never said anything about not hiring him. Quite the opposite, in fact. Secondly, while I know you're not from around here originally, I'm surprised the name didn't ring a bell. The Arc family are kind of a known entity locally."

Hinata knew of the Arc family, but that only served to further confuse Hinata. "If you weren't saying to not hire him, what did you mean?"

"Weeeellll... did you see his references?" A nod from Hinata. "I kind of went to school with this guy's older sisters, and from hanging around them, I know what kind of circles they tend to run in. Those names didn't jive, so I made a call to one of his sisters. Turns out that ninety percent of that," he pointed at the papers in her hand, "is complete bullshit. The name, age, contact information and the high school are correct, and that's it."

Hinata looked back down at the papers in her hand with a scowl and slowly mounting anger. He had lied about his qualifications? "Yet you want to hire him?" She glanced back up with a pointed glare. "Why?"

Naruto leaned forward and uncrossed his legs. "Because his sister told me the story of the _failure_ known as Jaune Arc," he replied simply. "A boy with few friends, little talent, and no serious career prospects. A boy who kept messing up at the simplest of tasks and had no one to believe in him... not even his seven sisters or his parents. A boy whose only claim to notoriety was the sheer number of hours he put into his one passion: video games." Naruto finally sat up straight and stared directly into Hinata's eyes.

"A boy who swore to his parents that he would get a job doing what he loved and make a name for himself in the video game industry."

Hinata could only close her eyes and sigh. Of course it would be something like that. "I may have only lived here for a few years, Naruto, but even I've been here long enough to know that your own motto is not dissimilar to the Arc family's: 'An Arc never goes back on their word', wasn't it?" Naruto's grin was all the answer she received. "Very well, then," she began as she tossed the resume into the garbage bin sitting between them. "Let him prove himself under the guidance of someone just as stubborn as himself."

Naruto just leaned back, still grinning. "I wouldn't have it any other way, Hinata. I'm looking forward to seeing what he's got. I'll put him with Idate to start out with and go from there." Getting a nod from Hinata, he passed her the last packet. "Last, but not least is our very own Monkey King."

Hinata quirked an eyebrow and couldn't help but laugh. "Seriously? Sun Wukong?" She looked back at Naruto, who had a full blown fox grin on his face. "You double checked this is legit?"

"No joke, Hinata. Sun. Wukong. Either he came out of a fifteen hundred year long game of Hide and Seek to play video games for a living or his parents have a really weird sense of humor," Naruto joked while laughing. "That being said, his credentials all passed muster. No actual professional experience, but I peaked at his social media and Steam account achievements and he's got the skills and dedication to do the job."

"Hmm... blond, decent looking and, according to your notes, has a boisterous and friendly personality," Hinata drawled with a smirk.

Grin. "Ino?"

"Ino," Hinata agreed as she placed Sun's paperwork on her desk next to Blake's. "I take it that you plan to give them their initiation exam?"

"Yep~!" he responded instantly, using his hands as a headrest against the wall. "I even know exactly which one I'm going to be giving them."

"Do tell..." Hinata prodded, having a good idea exactly which test he was going to put to this particular trio.

"These three all strike me as solo players. Jaune has never had any support, so has never expected to get any at all. Blake probably knows all about working as a team, but with her personal life being as messed up as it is, she's even less likely to try to make new bonds or cause waves right out the gate. And Sun... well, Sun's the type to dive headfirst into a new game with the difficulty set to Hardcore just for the challenge. He won't opt for the 'easy' solution if a more challenging way to prove his superiority exists."

Hinata's grin was now downright predatory. "Oh, Naruto... The Bell Test? You're evil!" she exclaimed with a laugh. "Mind if I spectate?"

Naruto looked up at the clock to check the time. "Only if we're done here. I've got a hot date tonight. Real special event, you know?" he said with a wink to the woman across from him. "I mean, it's not every day that anniversaries roll around."

Hinata couldn't help but chuckle at her boyfriend's antics. "Very true, Naruto. You never did tell me what you had planned for us to do," she agreed as she stood from her desk, Naruto quickly doing the same. "Care to enlighten me?"

Saying nothing, Naruto walked to the door of her office leaned down and around the frame and stood back up holding a basket that he'd obviously left there before coming in. "Really? A picnic basket?"

Naruto just shrugged. "Why not? I figured we could head out behind the office to the gardens and have ourselves a picnic dinner while we enjoy the weather and watch the sunset. What'cha think?" he asked with a grin as he turned his side towards her and offered his arm for her to take.

XXXXXXXX

"You know that everyone with offices in the back of the building can see us, right?" asked an amused Hinata.

"Yeah, so? Let 'em look," he replied after taking a sip of wine. "It's a damn fine view."

Hinata had to agree as she took took a bite out her sandwich and looked towards the horizon across the gardens behind their office building. "True..."

"Besides," Naruto continued on. "This is first day of the summer that hasn't been outright sweltering. Someone up there must like me to make the weather perfect for an evening picnic." Saying so, he finished off a slice of apple and reached over to grab another half-sandwich from the tray on the blanket.

"It _is_ nice to be able to step outside the building and not immediately break into a sweat..."

"Yeah, and..." Naruto stopped suddenly as a hand covered his own. Turning his head, his eyes widened as Hinata pressed her lips against his. Getting over his surprise, Naruto closed his eyes and deepened the kiss, responding in kind as their tongues sought access to the other's mouth.

As they seperated slightly, Hinata pressed her forehead against Naruto's. "It's perfect, Naruto. You don't have to be so worried or nervous. I love it. Thank you," she told him, pressing one more kiss against his lips before leaning back to her original position on her side of the blanket.

Naruto rubbed the back of his head with his free hand and chuckled in embarrasment. "Was I that obvious?"

Hinata's kind smile answered his. "Don't worry. Your tells are only obvious to me." She reached over to the tray and grabbed two half-sandwiches, handing one to Naruto. "Maybe to Sasuke and Sakura, too, but they don't count in this instance."

"Speaking of, can you believe they're getting married next month?" he asked, then took a bite of his food.

"Hmm..." she hummed softly. "They've been engaged a year and a half now. I'm honestly surprised they didn't get married sooner."

"Yeah, me too... but Sasuke wanted to have his own savings put aside beforehand. Nevermind the fact that his family is as loaded as yours and mine are and wouldn't even blink at fronting them the money to buy a house outright," Naruto griped good-naturedly as he polished off his food and washed it down with the rest of his wine. "He's too stubborn and proud for his own good, but I can't fault his work ethic or say that he doesn't have his heart in the right place."

"The same could be said about you, you know?" teased Hinata as she poked him in the side. He chuckled and playfully batted away her finger. "But seriously, have you put any thought into getting a bigger place yourself?" she asked, coming back to a conversation they'd had a number of times. While they tended to end up back at his apartment more often than not after their dates, it was invariably a bachelor pad. She was sure they were both invested in their relationship and were looking to eventually make it serious, but with her living in her family manor and Naruto living in a one bedroom apartment, talks of taking their relationship further than serious dating had been tentative at best.

"As a matter of fact..." Naruto drawled, intentionally looking towards the fading sun and _not_ at Hinata. He could still feel her disbelieving gaze on him, however.

"Naruto...?"

"Found a nice three bedroom-two bathroom place about ten minutes from here, still in the suburbs and just off a main road. Mile from the police and fire stations and two blocks from a hospital with an emergency room. Sits on a half-acre lot with plenty of yard left over..."

He felt her shift and saw her turn her entire body towards him out of the corner of his eye. "How much is it? How would you afford the mortgage?" They both knew that Naruto could easily afford his apartment, but paying for a new house was a whole other beast.

"Weeelllll... about that..." he began, red beginning to darken his face.

"Narut-"

"Mom sort of... kind of... went and bought it for me already," he said, blush now readily apparent on his face. He then turned to finally face his girlfriend, who was staring, open-mouthed at him.

"I... thought you wanted to do the same thing as Sasuke and buy your own house," she said slowly, eyes looking all over his face, as if searching for clues to a mystery.

"I absolutely did... buuuut mom kind of forced my hand and left me with no choice but to let her buy it for me," Naruto explained as he reached behind himself into the picnic basket. "It was the only thing she would accept in exchange for missing out..."

"Missing ou-... No! Naruto!"

Naruto held out a small black velvet case, which he opened to reveal a silver ring with three diamonds. It was a very simple design, but elegant just the same.

"Hinata Hyuuga, will you marry me?"

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*click* *click* *click* *click*

*shuffle-shuffle*

*click* *click* *click* *click*

"Okay, I think that should be enough to satisfy his mom. I feel like a voyeur... but I got the important parts at the very least, with some decent action shots for flavor."

"I still can't believe that Kushina bought you a brand new telescopic lens just so you could take pictures of Naruto asking Hinata to marry him, Sasuke..."

"Sakura, I love you dearly, but you _really_ need to stop underestimating what lengths Naruto's mom will go to when it comes to stuff like this."

XXXXXXXX

Jaune couldn't believe he was actually standing in front of Hidden Leaves Entertainment.

It was a _huge_ surprise when his resume got him a callback, but he still couldn't believe that he'd passed his first interview and was now just a few steps away from keeping his promise. He glanced down at the letter in his hands and re-read it just to make sure he hadn't screwed up anything.

 _Mr. Arc,_

 _Congratulations and welcome to Hidden Leaves Entertainment!_

 _Your employee orientation is scheduled for Wednesday, June 27th at 8:00 A.M. at the address below. Food and drinks will be provided, so be sure to come hungry! Orientation is expected to last 4 hours, so come prepared!_

 _Best Regards,_

 _Naruto Uzumaki_

 _Quality Assurance Team Lead_

Jaune quickly checked his watch. 7:52 A.M. Just in time!

' _Calm down, Juane. You've come this far. Don't get cold feet now!_ '

Taking a deep breath, he walked to the door and pulled it open.

XXXXXXXX

The three Quality Assurance Team Leads were sitting together in their meeting room, watching the security video feed for the lobby to the forefront of the large screen mounted on the wall. Off to the side was a smaller video feed to another room where a pale black-haired woman and tanned blond man were sitting at a table, the woman reading a book with a green cover completely ignoring whatever the man was saying. By the looks of it, the man was either trying to make small talk, or straight up hitting on the woman.

"There's the last one," pointed out Ino as a tall blond man let himself into the building and made a bee line for the front desk. She took one last long sip of her coffee, then chucked it at the garbage bin by the door. "Time for me to shine! You love birds behave yourselves now!" she chirped happily at the blushing pair as she sashayed out of the door.

Naruto sighed and shook his head. "It's going to be weeks before she even starts to let up a little bit."

Hinata giggled in response. "It could be worse, Naruto. Kushina could have e-mailed those pictures to everyone in our teams."

"Thank God for small mercies!" They both shared a laugh as Ino exited the elevator on the screen and made her way over to greet their new hire. Her personality seemed to be a bit much for Mr. Arc to handle and it was apparent that Ino was turning him into a stuttering mess, despite his best efforts. "She's really enjoying herself with this one, isn't she?"

"Why shouldn't she? It's not like she can make anyone on our teams a stuttering mess anymore," Hinata pointed out. "They're all innured to her antics at this point."

"True... true. And there they go. Okay, I'm off to prep the consoles and grab some food before picking up the newbies. You mind setting up the feeds so that the troops can watch the fun?" he stood and asked his fiance with a grin.

"Sure thing," she replied as she stood as well. "Give them hell, love." She reached up and pulled Naruto down for a short kiss before letting go and giving him a wink. "Good luck, have fun, don't die!"

"Ha! Never going to happen!"

XXXXXXXX

Jaune was bored. No scratch that. Jaune was bored and _hungry_. And going by the demeanors of his fellow new hires, they were, too. Well, at least Sun was. Blake seemed to be plenty entertained by whatever it was that she was reading if her expression was anything to go by. After Jaune had been shown into the room by that very good looking woman, he had introduced himself to the people that were already there. Sun seemed to be the outgoing sort, but Blake had simply given him a curt greeting and then paid him absolutely no further attention.

The letter had said that there would be food and drink provided and that their orientation would begin at 8, but so far they'd just been shoved into a room and left waiting. That had been almost three hours ago...

Realizing that there was nothing he could do about his hunger without leaving and giving up his opportunity, he decided to at least relieve his boredom. He decided to turn his attention to the monitor on the wall of the room and actually read what was being displayed. It seemed to be a few informational notices and what _looked_ like a High Score board of some sort. Jaune stood up from his seat and wandered over to get a better look as it continued to cycle through.

As it came back around to the score board again, he acted on a hunch and reached up to touch the screen. The Pause symbol suddenly displayed itself along the bottom of the screen and the display stopped cycling. "Huh... nifty." He then started to read.

BELL TEST RESULTS

KUSS 9,534,000

ASKI 7,238,000

KHST 6,852,000

STOJ 5,917,000

"What are you doing?"

Jaune turned away from the screen and saw that it was Blake who had asked the question, her attention no longer on her book. Instead she was focused on him with a raised eyebrow.

"Uh... well, the scoar board caught my attention and I got curious, so..."

"You're not concerned about possibly getting in trouble for touching things you know nothing about?" she asked sharply, eyes narrowing.

"Hey, hey! Ease up, kitty cat!" Sun said with a bright smile and hands giving a 'calm down' motion. "It's not like he broke anything. Besides! It _is_ a touch screen."

"That's beside the point," she retorted, turning her glare on the other blond. "And call me 'kitty cat' again and shove that eye-watering tie down your throat!"

Now that Jaune really looked at them, Blake's bow _did_ kind of look like cat ears... and Sun's bright orange tie _was_ rather... bright.

"And anyway, that score board probably has nothing to do with us, so you're just wasting your time," she shot, waving her hand dismissively towards Jaune and the screen. He wanted to retort, but before he could the door to the room opened up, drawing all of their attention.

"Hey you three! Good to meet you all!" exclaimed the tall blond man... holding a coffee mug and _eating a doughnut_! "I'm Naruto Uzumaki, one of the Quality Assurance Team Leads, and I'll be giving you all your initiation exams today!" he said before taking a bite of his pastry and washing it down with delicious smelling coffee. "Now, before we get started, does anyone have any questions for me?"

Sun was the first to raise his hand and spoke up when Naruto gestured to him with his mug. "Yeah, hi! I'm Sun Wukong, nice to meet you. So, uh, there was supposed to be food and stuff? Like... hours ago? What happened with that?" he asked, with both Jaune and Blake nodding in agreement.

"Wait," Naruto began, confusion on his face. "There weren't doughnuts and coffee in here?" Everyone shook their heads. "Hold that thought."

The Team Lead then leaned back into the hallway and called out, "Hey, CHOUJI!"

"YEAH?!" came the reply from in the distance.

"Whose turn was it to buy food for the newbies?!"

"Uuuuhhhhhhhhhh... Pretty sure it was yours, Naruto!"

"Seriously?! _Shit_... Alright, thanks Chouji!"

Naruto then turned his attention back to the trio in the room with him. "Soooo, yeah... I kind of dropped the ball on that one guys. My bad!" he said with a bashful grin... as he finished off his doughnut and, again, washed it down with his coffee. "Okay, so any _other_ questions before we begin?"

He was met with three angry glares.

"Excellent! So if there aren't any more questions, just follow me to the exam room and we'll get this started!" Naruto explained as he turned around and started walking down the hallway. Blake, Sun and Jaune exchanged glances quickly before following the focus of their ire away from the room they'd been stuck in for three hours.

A short walk later had them entering a room with Testing Center on the door. Upon reading the words, Blake turned and gave Jaune a funny look before shaking her head and entering the room after Naruto. In the Testing Center were four old fashioned AV carts with TVs, consoles of some sort, headsets, and what was assumed to be the controls for said consoles. The carts were the kind that every public school in the country used to use on days the actual teacher was out and the substitute declared it 'movie day'.

Jaune wouldn't be surprised if he were to find the name of one of the local schools written somewhere on the cart were he to take a closer look.

"Okay, you three!" Naruto began after polishing off his beverage and placing the empty mug on the cart furthest from the door. The four carts were set up facing back to back in four different directions and there were gaming chairs set in front of each cart. Naruto grabbed the controller and headset from the cart nearest to him and sat in the chair in front of the cart. "Pick a console, grab the controller and headset and have a seat. I'll explain the rules once everyone's settled."

Blake and Sun chose the seats on either side of Naruto, leaving the console directly across from Naruto as Jaune's only choice. As he sat down with the required items, he realized that he could see Naruto through the gap underneath the top platform of the cart. "Everyone good to go? Good."

Naruto pressed something on his controller and the screen in front of him sprang to life.

BELL TEST

BEGIN TEST

WARM UP

EXIT TEST

"Welcome to the Bell Test. This is a heavily modded port of a very popular FPS game that Hidden Leaves Entertainment uses to test... unique teams upon initiation to the company," Naruto explained as he stood from his chair and moved over to the counter along the back wall of the room behind where he was sitting. "I will state this plainly so that everyone understands it up front: HLE has a very unique and _firm_ stance on our teams. You three will be playing as a team against myself. Your objective will be to kill my character in order to obtain a Bell. Each of your characters are unique. They have different skills, special abilities, and statistics from each other and my own character. I will warn you now," he said, taking the time to look each of them in the eye. "If you do not come at me with everything you've got, you _will_ fail."

"Fail...?"

Jaune realized that the question had come from himself involuntarily.

"Yes, Mister Arc. Fail." Naruto's piercing blue eyes drilled into him from across the room. "Failure means that you leave through that door behind you, keep walking until you're out of the building, and never return."

Jaune felt all the blood leave his face as he realized that this was his one and only shot to succeed. Failure meant going back home and admitting defeat... and breaking his promise.

"How, exactly, do we fail, sir?" asked Sun from Jaune's right.

Naruto nodded and answered the younger blond's question. "My character is carrying two bells at the begining of the game. If you kill my character, your character will then be carrying a bell. Killing any player that is carrying a bell will then transfer that bell to yourself. The same rule applies to me: I can kill one of you carrying a bell to take it back. Anyone that _doesn't_ have a bell at the end of the game... fails."

Blake and Sun's gazes hardened while Jaune blanched further. This was not how he thought his day would go...

"So to clarify," Blake began, drawing Sun and Jaune's attention. "Only two of the three of us can pass this test." Naruto merely inclined his head slightly with a neutral expression on his face.

' _But then why put us on a team in the first place? It just defeats the point of being on a team if we're forced to fight over who gets the bells at the end!_ ' Jaune thought to himself.

"Don't forget, however, that none of you may pass, as well, Miss Belladonna. After all," he said, pausing for a moment. "This exam has a sixty-six percent fail rate."

Blake give a fierce grin to the older man. "I don't think that'll be an issue."

Naruto gave her a baleful look in return. "We shall see, Miss Belladonna, won't we? Now!" He clapped his hands together, surprising all three of them. "I need to grab a few things from the other room. While I'm gone, go ahead and use the time to Warm Up, familiarize yourselves with your characters, and talk amongst yourselves. I'll be back in just a few minutes."

Having said that, Naruto walked passed Blake and Jaune and exited the room.

XXXXXXXX

"How are they holding up?" Naruto asked as he popped his head into the meeting room. The entire Quality Assurance team was spread throughout the room watching the large monitor on the wall. He could hear the three new hires' voices coming out of the speakers along the walls as they spoke to each other using the noise-canceling gaming headsets to talk to each other. It wasn't friendly banter or planning, either.

Shikamaru turned away from the computer he was sitting at and gave Naruto a bland look. "About as well as you expected. Sun basically told them to stay out of his way and Blake is pretty much ignoring the other two completely."

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "And Jaune?"

Shikamaru grimaced slightly. "He's getting a handle on the controls well enough... but I had to mute his audio. He's apparently having a mini panic attack."

Naruto sighed. "Yeah, I thought that might happen. Let's hope they pull it together, then. You ready to make my character the most ninja-like futuristic supersoldier in the world?"

A quick thumbs up from the lazy man confirmed that he was ready with the cheats. "Kiba, you ready to provide overwatch for me?"

Kiba turned away from his computer with a feral grin. "Ready to roll, dude!"

"Excellent! Be sure to let me know if they actually get their acts together and figure out what they're _supposed_ to be doing. I've got the box lunches ready here, so I'll see you guys on the flip side!" Naruto yelled as he slipped out of the room again.

A barked laugh followed him down the hall. "Dude, you are _so_ mean!"

XXXXXXXX

Jaune's mouth was watering and his stomach was protesting _loudly_ as Naruto placed the two boxed lunches on the counter behind his gaming chair. As he turned back to the trio, he smiled evilly at them. "All right, prep time is over. Return to the main menu." Jaune sighed as he navigated the menu and returned to the starting screen.

As the older blond took his seat and got comfortable, he continued. "Since I messed up this morning with the catering, I went and prepared some boxed lunches for those of you who pass. Those who fail... well, if you fail, then you're not my problem anymore, now are you?"

Jaune gulped.

Naruto reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bedside alarm clock, pulled up on the tab and placed it on the ground in front of him. "This clock is set for noon. You have until the alarm goes off to get a bell."

He then placed his headset over his ears and pressed a button on his controller. "Ready up!"

Jaune selected BEGIN TEST and gave a silent prayer to the aether.

XXXXXXXX

" _Dammit! I'm so_ sick _of his damn teleportation! Stay still, asshole!_ "

" _Crap! How'd he get behind me?!_ "

" _Bullshit, that was definitely a headshot!_ "

XXXXXXXX

Naruto could barely hear the other people in the room with him as they were cursing him, but he made sure to listen for Kiba's warnings and watch all three of them to see if any of them figured out the secret to the test on their own.

Blake and Sun were very focused on their screens. They were also the most vehement in their curses. Jaune, however... Naruto glanced back at his screen and sidestepped a rocket, returned fire with a sniper rifle, then jumped off the cliff he was on to perform an aerial assassination on the unmoving character below him.

Naruto's eyes narrowed slightly. "Shika, unmute Jaune and see if he tries to get the other's attention. I think he's figuring it out."

" _Then he's cutting it really close..._ "

XXXXXXXX

' _Why the hell would he put us on a team and then force us to compete against each other?! It doesn't make any sense!_ '

Jaune ignored the game as his character respawned from yet another death. He was focused on something more important. Namely, figuring out the real purpose of this test.

FPSs were Jaune's bread and butter. In a fair match, Jaune put better than even odds on himself coming out of it with at least a 1:1 Kill-Death Ratio. More than thirty deaths a piece and not a single kill to their name? That was bullshit.

It was glaringly obvious within the first few minutes of the game that Naruto was using dev cheats to ROFLStomp the three of them into submission. However, it wasn't clear if the others had figured that little bit out for themselves yet. Probably not, considering they were both continuing to act like they actually had a chance against Naruto and would magically pull a rabbit out of their asses to pull off a win.

Jaune tore his eyes away from the screen and looked directly at Naruto. After a few seconds, Naruto met his gaze... and merely quirked an eyebrow at him as he pulled the trigger, sending a sniper round through Jaune's character's head.

' _Son. Of. A. Bitch!_ '

"Blake. Sun. Listen up!"

" _Unless you're going to say 'I'm sorry I suck so badly', I don't actually give a fuck right now!_ "

" _What she said, dude! Quit your yapping and let me concenrate on killing this asshole!_ "

"Damn it, you two! Listen to me a second! I think I know wha-"

"" _SHUT UP!_ ""

Both Blake and Sun finally tore their eyes from their screens to give Jaune death glares before going back to the game.

XXXXXXXX

" _Nar-_ "

"Don't worry. I saw it first hand, Shika. Kill the cheats, okay? I need to make a point."

XXXXXXXX

" _Woo! That's what I'm fucking talking about! Got one, baby~!_ "

" _And I've got number two!_ "

Jaune could hear the voices of his "teammates" in stereo. After telling him to shut up, Jaune had simply shaken his head, put down his controller, pulled the headsets down around his neck and put his face into his hands to wait for it all to be over.

*bee-bee-bee-beep* *bee-bee-bee-beep* *click*

"Time's up."

"Aww, yeah! Photo finish! That's what I'm talking about!"

"Hmph. I knew I would find a way to pull through."

"Congratulations. You all fail."

""WHAT?!""

Jaune sighed into his hands. He knew it. This test was never about getting the bells at all.

"What do you mean 'fail'?! I got the stupid bell like I was supposed to before time was up!"

"I don't understand, Mister Uzumaki. Sun and I completed the objective. Why is it that we failed?"

Jaune heard the sound of something brushing against fabric.

"Mister Arc, would you care to tell the class why everyone failed this exam?"

Jaune didn't even bother to raise his head. Gods, he was so damned tired and hungry. He just wanted to go home, eat a big lunch and crawl into a hole. This day had just gotten worse and worse as it went on.

"Because the exam was never about getting the bells in the first place. This wasn't supposed to be a test of skill. This was our _Kobayashi Maru_."

To his right, he could hear Sun's 'Huh?', but to his left, Blake's quick gasp and curse told him that she _finally_ understood.

"Miss Belladonna, if this was not a test of skill, what _was_ it a test of?"

"...Teamwork."

"Correct. Teamwork. And here I was thinking that it would be _you_ that figured it out first. After all, you already have three years of QA experience under your belt. You should know better than most." Naruto's pointed statement was met with silence from Blake. "Of the three of you, only Mister Arc even attempted to look underneath the underneath. While you berated him for his supposed lack of skill, he was following his gut instinct, figuring out the meta, and attempting to puzzle together the true purpose of the exam. And when he finally _did_ figure it out and attempted to tell you..."

"We didn't listen to him," Sun said, sadly. Nothing but silence came from his left.

"We have a saying here at Hidden Leaves Entertainment: 'Those who don't follow the rules are trash...' Mister Arc... at the end there, you put down the controller. Why?"

Jaune gave a mirthless laugh and raised his head to look Naruto in the eye. "'A strange game; the only winning move is not to play.'"

Naruto gave him a smile. "That movie is a bit before your time, isn't it?"

"Does it make it any less true?" he shot back.

"No, I suppose it doesn't." Naruto leaned his head back against the headrest of his chair and closed his eyes. After a minute of complete silence in the room, "One more chance. No dev cheats. No overwatch from on high. Just a 3v1 against an overpowered character in the hands of the guy who created the mod in the first place... with you all trying to get the bells. If you're able to get them in the first place, you'll have to decide who stays and who goes on your own."

Jaune gave a short sigh as he moved to put the headset back in place. "But first, it's lunch time," Naruto continued, causing Jaune to freeze. "I know I said that the boxed lunches were for those of you who passed, but if they don't get eaten soon, they'll just go to waste. So instead, Mister Wukong and Miss Belladonna, since you managed to each get a bell before the end of the test, you each may take one lunch box to eat. Since Mister Arc chose to break the rules and give up completely, he gets no lunch at all."

' _Of course..._ ' Jaune could only nod and sigh.

"I'll be going back to my desk to eat my own lunch. You have thirty minutes to eat and prepare for the make-up exam. When I come back, we'll try again." Naruto put down his controller and stood up. "Oh, and if either of you tries to feed Mister Arc, you immediately give up your second chance. I'll fail you all on the spot."

"What? That's not fair to h-" Blake began.

"LIFE ISN'T FAIR!" Naruto turned to the girl and stared her down. "Something that I'm sure you are _well_ aware of, Miss Belladonna. I'm the one in charge here and my word is law in this room! Remember: 'Those who don't follow the rules are _trash_...' You want I should kick you all to the curb?"

Silence met his question. He walked to the door and opened it. "Thirty minutes."

*ka-clunk*

XXXXXXXX

"Too much?"

" _No... I think that was just the perfect amount of asskicking needed. Standby. Hinata wants to say something._ "

...

" _Naruto?_ "

"Yeah, Hina-hun?"

" _You were absolutely right. Ichiraku is on me tonight._ "

"Yeeeeesssssss~!"

*giggle* " _Now go get into position. They're just finishing up their apologies._ "

XXXXXXXX

"I get it, already, you two. Really I do, but as hungry as I am, I don't want to throw away our last chance at this. I'll be fine, honest."

"And I already said, 'fuck that,' Jaune! If we'd have listened to you, we might have actually stood a chance from the get-go. If you can figure out all that crap while being tired, cranky, and starving, I _really_ want to see how you function fully fueled, dude!"

"He's right, Jaune. I was too stubborn to listen and I let my previous experience go to my head. Of the three of us, I think you were the only one who really passed that test, bells be damned."

"Blake... Sun... Thank you... but seriously, I can't do it."

"Look, dude. Either we are all eating or we are all going hungry, but whatever you decide, we're doing this as a team, got it?"

"I agree with Sun. We're doing this together this time. Fuck his rules. And besides, I already checked the hallway. He's nowhere nearby. If nothing else, just take a few bites from each of our boxes so that you can get some blood sugar going."

"...*sigh* Okay. Let's do this quick, though. We still need to take the time to plan what we're doing this time."

"That's what I'm talking about! Here, dude! First bite's yours!"

"Here, mine, too. You earned it."

"Thanks guys." *chomp* *chomp* "Oh, that's sooooo good..." *gulp*

*SLAM*

"YOOOOU!"

"Shit!"

"Ah!"

"Dude, WTF?!"

Naruto stormed into the room, headsets hanging around his neck and rage in his eyes.

"Just like that, huh? I'm gone for five minutes and you just go and break the rules?! After I graciously gave you all a second chance?! What do you all have to say for yourselves?!"

"Mister Uzumaki, it's my fault! Don't fail Blake and Sun! I was the one who convinced them to give me the food!"

"What?! Bullshit, dude! We had to convince _you_! There's no way I'm letting you take the fall for this! Dude, Naruto! Let Blake and Jaune pass! I was way to much of a Try Hard in that test anyway!"

"Not going to happen, you two. You guys have a lot of potential and I'm not going to let that go to waste because of my own stupidity! I've got work experience under my belt that I can use to get another job. Mister Uzumaki, fail me instead. Jaune was the one that figured it all out in the first place and Sun is a quick study and will make a great addition to your team."

"No, Blak-"

"Uh-uh, Kitty Cat."

"Guys, just shut up an-"

"Is that your final answer? All three of you are willing to give up your slot for the other two?"

"Yes, sir."

"Absolutely, boss man."

"Without a second thought."

"...In that case, YOU ALL... Pass."

"""WHAAAAT?!"""

"You pass," said Naruto with a glowing smile. Jaune turned to look at Blake and Sun, only to see them just as confused as himself.

"But... why?" he ventured.

Naruto walked back across the room and sat back in his chair, the three of them turning their chairs so they could all see him.

"When I told you that saying earlier, I didn't tell you the whole thing," he explained with a very large grin. "At Hidden Leaves Entertainment, teamwork and passion for what we do has put us on the same playing field with the likes of Electronic Arts and Square-Enix. When it comes to our work, we all follow the same motto: 'Those who don't follow the rules are trash... but those who abandon their friends are even _worse_ than trash!'"

Jaune, Blake and Sun all gasped with wide eyes.

"In the Quality Assurance Department, you will be a part of a _team_. You will see these people every day. Sometimes even days at a time in close proximity. Our teammates are our friends. They are our family. If you do your absolute best, your team will always have your back, even if your best isn't enough. If you do your utmost to improve, your Team Lead will go to bat for you with our Director, regardless of the situation or mistake. But most importantly, if you promise me right here, right now, that I will _never again_ see that same blatant disregard for your teammates that I saw today, regardless of the repercussions to yourself, I will personally promise each of you that I will have your back all the way up to our CEO, Tsunade Senju. Can you make that promise?"

Three nods, two blonds with tears in their eyes, and one face covered by wavy, raven-colored hair.

"Yes, sir. I promise it on the Arc family name!"

"Never again, dude. I promise."

"I promise, sir. No more running and no more pushing away."

"In that case, my own promise stands. And Naruto Uzumaki never goes back on his word! Congratulations, Team BANS, on passing the Bell Test. Your score will be updated on the score board by tomorrow morning."

"Team..."

""BANS?""

Naruto laughed at their expressions of confusion. "Yep~! Team BANS. **B** lake Belladonna, Jaune **A** rc, **N** aruto Uzumaki, and **S** un Wukong. The Bell Test is only ever taken as a group of four and, again, only for very unique teams. Accordingly, teams that pass are given fun little team names and given a place on the score board that Jaune noticed in the waiting room. Ours is BANS."

"Okay, that's actually pretty clever."

"I'll say! We brought the BANS hammer! Eh? Eh?!"

"Oh, gods... I thought I was done with puns after Yang enlisted..."

"Heh! You guys are going to fit in just fine. C'mon, you lot. We've got a party set up in the meeting room and the team is eager to meet you all."

XXXXXXXX

"12,854,000 points, huh?"

"You think they'll be crushed when they realize that the score is based off of how many deaths they had and the amount of time it took them to figure out the secret of the test?"

"You going to tell them?"

"Nope... too troublesome. Let someone else get their kicks. I think Chouji would be best."

"Chouji? Why him?"

"You didn't hear what that Wukong kid said during his ranting on comms, did you?"

"Oh, no... He used the F word?"

"Uh huh..."

"HA! Poor bastards... I'll go let Chouji know that he's got the right of first refusal."

XXXXXXXX

Author's Note

XXXXXXXX

And that's a wrap! For those of you not in the know (SERIOUSLY?! How could you not be in the know?!), the three characters that sort of take center stage in this final chapter (after the fluffy NaruHina goodness) are from the show RWBY by Rooster Teeth. I wasn't expecting to make this a cameo crossover, but I couldn't think of anyone else in Naruto canon that I could really make work with those scenes. So, instead I pulled from a new fandom that I've really taken a shine to.

To the RWBY fans out there, I know that Sun doesn't go around saying "dude" all the time, but he always struck me as the quintessential surfer-bro. So that's pretty much how I wrote him, except with gaming terms tossed in for good measure. That aside, I hope I was able to write Blake and Jaune well enough to pass muster. Let me know how I did in the comments!

Originally, this chapter was going to pick up right where the last chapter left off: with Naruto and Hinata taking a trip to "meet the family" on Christmas Eve, where Sasuke would be proposing to Sakura in front of both of their families. However, I just wasn't able to get those scenes to come together the way I wanted to in my head. So instead I took a step back and brought the focus back to where it all began: At Hidden Leaves Entertainment's Quality Assurance Department. I think it was a lot more fun and entertaining to write than it was the other way.

It honestly felt like I was continually bashing my head against the wall with that subplot. So I cut out the meat of it, and put it back in as backstory. I think it flowed pretty well, but I was a little sad that the NaruHina fluff was as short as it was. I just couldn't keep it going for some reason. *shrug* Oh, well. Some things just can't be helped.

ANYWAY!

This brings Secret Santa to a close. It also happpens to be the very first fic that I've completed to my satisfaction! Not going to lie, this last chapter was a lot of fun to write... and I might even make a one-shot or two at a later date if I'm feeling froggy enough.

Looking forward to writing the next **story**! _Ja-ne!_

 _ **"Even if the author is silenced, the performance is stopped, the story will not end.**_

 _ **Whether it's a comedy or a tragedy, if there is cheering, the story will continue on.**_

 _ **Just like the many lives.**_

 _ **For the us who are still in it and still in the journey, send warm blessings.**_

 _ **-We will continue to walk down this path until eternity."**_

 _ **~Fate/Stay Night - True Ending (Realta Nua)~**_


End file.
